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It is not often that you have a gathering of people open to new and unusual
ideas. So it was with some excitement that I approached the rare chance to
do some field research while I was teaching in Thailand last summer.
Fifty people from Holland and Italy came to Chiang Mai for a two-week
retreat. They were doctors, practitioners of various techniques, but mostly
just people who wanted to expand their awareness. Although my presentations
were based on my 'Intention in Action' method as a healing technique I was
curious to see what reaction the group might have to discussions on spirit
release.
Normally I am very cautious about discussing the possibility of attachment
with private clients or before large groups, not wishing to plant
suggestions. We can never be sure that what we assume is exactly what is
happening. Therefore the idea of spirit involvement needs to come from the
client and not from the practitioner in the first instance - whether we think
that is the problem or not.
As most of us know, in these talks there are usually a few people who form an
undercurrent of chat, others become fidgety, outright yawning or holding a
superior expression of knowing it already. However, the night I talked of
spirit release no one fluttered an eyelid for the whole hour and a half. And
inside myself I knew then that this group would be open to learn about the
release of spirits because all of them were attracted to the "Power Of Love"
which was the name of the retreat. I didn't need to explain much because the
power of love is the core of my approach.
But the next day and for a long time afterward, in the tropical setting of
the Tao Garden, surrounded by untold numbers of butterflies, freedom from
mosquitoes and with organic food on hand, one or another person would look
for ways to find me sitting by myself, walking in the banana palms or eating
quietly, to share a story of personal tragedy, confusion, deep sorrow or
desperation.
Perhaps some of them didn't feel confident to ask for help directly. Yet they
each knew they had finally found a way to let go of their strange stories and
it would come bursting out of them.
What was astonishing was that more than 30% of the group had such stories to
tell. Most had spent large parts of their lives in fear of discovery, in
fear of incarceration in a mental hospital or facing a lifetime of drug
taking.
A Flashback ...
While I was listening a memory from my past practice came into my mind. One
very overweight Papua New Guinean woman came to see me in my clinic in
Sydney. She desperately wanted to lose weight because she could no longer
fit into an aeroplane seat. It meant she had great difficulty to travel to
her home country to do her spiritual work. She was distressed because she
was the only person from her village who was initiated into the ways of
helping the spirit of a dying person on its way.
Everyone in her country, in contrast to European culture, is sure that
spirits can get stuck and cause problems if they are not helped by specially
trained people. In Thailand the people are very aware of the same problem but
they have a different solution. Every house, hotel or commercial building has
a tiny ornate house in the garden or nearby, especially provided for the
spirit's use.
Back To Thailand ...
As I sat in the early evening a monsoon shower was disappearing over the rice
paddies, the gentle slap, slap of feeding fish in the pond close by and the
homely sounds of a late supper being prepared contrasted with the air thick
with the human pain which had been carried for years.
A woman called Monique came and sat by me watching the fish for a long time.
She began to tell me that at first during my talk she had became terrified.
She had swept her eyes around the other listeners sure that they had spotted
her discomfit. She did not sleep that night. For years, ever since her
alcoholic mother had died, she had felt her presence as a heavy knot in her
stomach. She could never make her own decisions; she was pushed to do things
only as her mother would have wanted.
Up till now she had heard only the theatrical approach through films such as
'Ghost' or 'Sixth Sense' and she was definitely panicked by the idea that
she might be the next candidate for exorcism or worse.
For two days after the talk she was absolutely paralysed with stomach ache and
fear. During my next group presentation she was lying on the mattresses in
the corner of the big meditation hall and only then did she ask me for help.
I spent twenty minutes with her and this is where Intentional Healing the
power of love comes in. While I'm with a client I drop any desire to
investigate, cross-question or apply rituals and religious icons. Then the
overpowering wish of the universe to lead towards the appropriate outcome
takes place.
My state, when working, is contagious. Monique only needed to relax into the
calm state I was generating for release of whatever it was that was bothering
her. Of course this requires training on the part of the practitioner.
Becoming detached from the outcome is the first and most difficult
lesson. This cannot be learnt on an intellectual level, it can only be
transmitted directly from the teacher to the student. Allowing all that is,
to take place, is a simple technique but it may take years of practice.
On the way back to Holland in the aeroplane, Monique was telling her friends
about the mixed feelings she had had. At the same time on one side she was
feeling empty and grieving and on the other, happy that from now on she could
take charge of her life.
Yvonne did not tell me why, but two days after the talk she was in the
swimming pool and was drawn to come to the place I was giving private
sessions. She was in tears and asked my assistant if she could just lie down
and listen to the 'Mind Music'.
Because I was working with eight people in a group I did not know she had
only come to rest and I began working with her. Immediately her body became
tense, convulsing, distorting her face. She began making primitive sounds
and her hands began clasping some invisible matter. Her head swung violently
from side to side, lifting up and banging roughly on the cushion.
It was not a time for counselling! In silence I periodically lightly touched
her shoulders, offering reassurance and directing her breathing. Slowly,
very slowly she calmed down. Her breathing quieted, her pulse slowed and she
lay quietly for 45 minutes.
She later told me that once on holiday in France, as she fell asleep, she
felt something push against her, from then on she could feel a dark presence
around her.
After the dramatic release she felt light and expanded.
Mark, (28), also chose not to tell me his problem before lying down and this
was acceptable since it is never my business why someone asks for help.
However he took me aside as he came out of the session and eagerly told me,
"Now I know I'm not insane!". His agony had begun at puberty. He told me,
"Occasionally I would get up in the morning and in the mirror I would see my
eyes had turned green from their usual brown."
On those days he would do 'insane' things. It might last a day or a week,
then he would return to his 'normal' self as a quiet timid boy and his eyes
would become brown again.
Now, in the safety of revelation, he described the healing sensation as
though a worm had wriggled into his left eye, behind his sinuses and out the
right eye. Weeks later he still feels unsettled but has never had the old
trouble again and describes his life as 'a new person, living free'.
Rafa is an endocrinologist. Since the teaching in Thailand she says, "If I
cannot match up the symptoms in a case, I use Clif's method with great
results".
The power of love inspired all the members of the group to deeply understand
the concept of spirit and spirit release. Those who had not had been
troubled by spirit attachment could provide support and compassion towards
those who had dramatic stories.
That feeling made us also realize that it doesn't matter which country or
culture we grew up in, we are indeed all members of the human 'Tribe'.
Postscript:
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