Searching For Mind-Over-Matter:

Extraordinary Experiences of an Ordinary Joe

Larry Rinzel

San Luis Obispo

Searching For Mind-Over-Matter: Extraordinary Experiences of an Ordinary Joe by Lawrence Rinzel

Create It Innovations Publishing Po Box 3208 San Luis Obispo, CA 93403 U.S.A. www.joyousintent.com wwww.createitinnovations.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Copyright 2009 by Lawrence Rinzel ISBN: 978-0-9824786-0-8
Digital Electronic Version ISBN: 978-0-9824786-2-2 Audio Version ISBN: 978-0-9824786-1-5

Disclaimer
The names throughout this book have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty and just about anyone else Ive run into. The change also gives me an out in case Ive insulted anyone. I can always say, Oh that wasnt YOU in that story! It was someone else who did the exact same things you did, at the exact same time, in the exact same place! So, basicallyIm covering my butt.

Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Luzette Graves and Belinda Kein for their non-stop efforts in reading and re-reading each chapter of my book. Their suggestions on pacing, story line, content and understandability made this book into a dynamic story, not just an engineering discussion paper. Without their encouragement my first draft would have been my last draft. Thanks go to Doris Lora and Mary Elizabeth Raines, Doris for her editorial comments and assessment of continuity throughout the book and Mary Elizabeth for her acknowledging the value of the book as well as pointing out items that were incomplete and needed to be revised. Enrica Lovaglio designed the beautiful cover. Many thanks go to her for patiently explaining the effects different printing machines have on color and for all the little tweaks she made in response to my requests. My thanks also go to Nancy Cullins for providing me my first look at how a book is actually printed. Nancy walked me through Cal Polys Graphic Arts printing process including offset and digital printing. Thanks go to Carly Irion for her patient book formatting as I learned what was needed to format a book and how to convey what I wanted in a manner that made sense. With Carlys guidance, having a finished book became possible. Kyle Dodson worked diligently with me on my web page design, taking many hours to explain how the web works, why I would want to use this style, that picture, and these software tools. For his efforts I am grateful. Id also like to thank Janakanand for his teachings and guidance for as long as I can remember. He is a friend, father and grandfather all rolled into one. And finally, Id like to thank Buck for untold and uncounted numbers of insights, teachings and the love in which he lives his life.

Table of Contents
Prologue Part A. The Student 1. The Power of Imagination 2. My Introduction to Mind-Over-Matter 3. A Guided Imagery Adventure 4.  Focused Images Get Results Exercise 1: See it, Feel it, Experience it. 5.  Past Images Can Effect the Present Exercise 2: Hidden Decisions 6.  Hidden Activities of the Mind Exercise 3: Daily Imagination Stories 7. Romantic Detours 8.  Higher Connections to the Ones We Love Exercise 4: Connection to Others 9.  Wrestling With Internal Crosstalk Exercise 5: Identifying Crosstalk 10.  Learning Self-Hypnosis Exercise 6: Unaware Self-Hypnosis 11.  Creating Laser Sharp Focus Exercise 7: Laser Focus 12. T  esting the Limits of Guided Imagery Exercise 8: Fooled by Imagination 13.Practicing Hypnosis Exercise 9: Self-Care 3 6 12 15 18 19 20 21 23 24 28 32 33 38 39 42 43 46 47 50 51 56 vii

14. A  Real Test of Mind-Over-Matter Exercise 10: Concrete Images 15.  Using Images for Healing Exercise 11: Healing Images 16.  Identifying True Desire Exercise 12: True Desires 17. Searching For A Teacher

57 59 60 63 64 67 68

Part B. The Teacher 18. A True Teacher Appears! 19. Well Hello There! 20. Identifying the Pieces of Mind-Over-Matter 21. InRoads In Action 73 77 81 87

22. Thoughts Rule Vibrations, Which Rule Possibilities 93 23. Changing Belief to Expectation 24. Generating Will and Letting Go 25. A Test of Mind-Over-Matter in Healing 26. A Formidable Foe! 105 118 124 127 132 133

Epilogue About the Author

Prologue
I never did make it up those stairs. The house was shaped like a U, a two-story duplex. My family lived downstairs: Father, Mother and the five terrors of which I was number two. The dreaded stairs ascended straight up from the opening of the U. They were ominous. Sunlight couldnt reach them. Im not sure even God could reach them! A faint glow from our kitchen lights illuminated the lower six steps, but above that it was like a bad horror movie where the light switch doesnt work. Yet, the heroineslowlycautiously peers into the darkness and throws a questioning Hello? A few more steps into the darkHello?and you, sitting in the audience, just cringe, knowingknowingdanger is there! If you can see it, why cant she? Dont look up there! you scream silently. She takes another step. DONT go up there! boils up from your throat! Suddenlythe heroine screams, joined by a similar scream from the person watching the movie with you as your gripping fingernails dig into their flesh! On this staircase in the middle of our house, I used to hide on the step just above the faint glow of the kitchen lights when we played hide and seek. Upstairs lived a mysterious woman whom I never met. She was a monster woman, or at least that was how I imagined her. Dancing at the edge of the demons lair! One step higher meant risking the vilest of tortures, burning at the stake, pain beyond belief! Of course, it could all have been just my imagination! Imagination working with the mind can be an exceedingly powerful tool. What is real? What isnt?

Part A

The Student

The Power of Imagination

My imagination. Is it friend or foe, glory or ruin? Is it a gift from above, a tool that can change my life, or merely a havoc-wreaking torment? Kids are always trying to make sense of the world, understand feelings, locate some form of experience map. I was no different. Why did my best friend act so mean to me? Why did the girls on the playground treat me so badly? Am I really that awful? What am I supposed to do when that gang of kids steals my money? Didnt mother see it was my sister who dropped her favorite coffee cup not me? Each of my highs and lows was real and not real. Experienced and interpreted. How much was my imagination and how much the world itself? I cannot say. But I do knowthe wolvesunder my bedwere real! My two sisters, one younger brother and I, shared a room down the hall from the dread stairs. My brother James and I shared a bunk bed, him in the upper, leaving me with the lower, while my sisters Karen and Tess each had the luxury of their own bed. James was four years younger than I and really didnt have a clue, evidenced by his willingness to eat mud and worms. My father

4 | The Student

nicknamed him Trouble, because if there was trouble to be had, James was there. Sleeping in the lower bunk gave me a distinct advantage over James. He was at the mercy of my kicking feet. This is called positive annoyance factor and I made sure James was the frequent recipient of such attention. Although the lower bunk felt like a small closet, just a teensy bit claustrophobic, the inconvenience was overcome by the joy of the kick. Our youngest brother, Tim, had his own room down the hall nearer to the stairs, which might explain why he turned out the way he did. My siblings and I owe him a debt of gratitude for handling all the monsters flowing forth from those stairs at night. While Tim handled the monsters on the stairs, I had to deal with a pack of wolves under my bed. The sheer number of wolves and monsters that can live in such a small space is staggering; you wouldnt believe it. I wish I had pictures to show you. Now these wolves were smart. In order to avoid being seen, they came out only at night but wouldnt jump up on my bed until I fell asleep, thus no pictures. If they had shown themselves earlier, I would have alerted my siblings and we as a team would have battled them to oblivion! Of course with todays technology, I could install a movement sensitive camera and that would prove they were real. Our nightly routine, the wolves and I, was for me to lie down and try to fall asleep, knowing full wellthat theywerewaiting. I am lying there dozing and they start to stir. The further into that drowsy state between waking and sleep I slip, the more my eyes start to close and the heavier my eyelids become, the further the door opens for a peek into a new world. This is a world where the nonsensical becomes perfectly understandable, where my arms feel like lead weights, where all sounds come from a distance as if listening through pudding, where my stomach feels like I am on a fast dropping elevator. As I slip into this world, the wolves become active. I can feel their hot breath on my arms; I hear their nails scratch the floor. Panic sets in. Are any of my body parts hanging over the edge? I pull my arms in close, making sure my feet are covered; yet still the wolves rise. Fierce eyes coldly evaluate my level of sleep: Is he still awake? Maybemaybe not. Thats OK. We have all night and

The Power of Imagination | 5

are by naturepatientwearing our victims down; the pursuit as enjoyable as the eventual kill. Well just keep pressing him further, further, until he falls from exhaustion. And they brought nightmares. Horrendous nightmares! The kind where I tried to run from my pursuers. Hurry, theyre coming! but the faster they came at me, the slower I seemed to move. Like molassesthickviscoussluggishcontinually slowing molasses. All my limbs paralyzed, the wolves kept coming, closer, closer, until, just when they were about to grab me, I would sit up in my bed startled awake, gasping for air, my t-shirt soaking wet. The soft breathing of my siblings contrasted with the loud breathing of the wolves under my bed. Having just had the excitement of the kill at hand, their tense gasps betrayed their disappointment. Thank my lucky stars I woke up! What if I hadnt?! Night after night they came for me and each time, I narrowly escaped. I had to do something. Desperation was setting in. But what could I do? Wolves were stronger, fastereaters of little children. If only I could make them believe I was awake. They always retreated under the bed when I woke up. Somehow, I needed to make them think sleep had not yet come. If they believed I was awake, they would wait. But how to persuade them? Then from somewhere deep in the same imagination that brought the wolves, the remedy appeared like a lightning bolt! Movement. Yes, that was it. Movement! They waited for me to STOP moving. That was the signal. They knew I was asleep when I stopped moving! Now all I needed to do was to keep movingsomehowbut how? Walking around? Nope, wont work; it would wake my siblings and Id get no rest. Besides, I was afraid to extend my feet or hands beyond the edge of the bed. What about wiggling my feet? Would it be convincing? Maybe. I started to wiggle my feet every night. Amazingly, it worked. After a few years, the wolves became convinced. This guy never sleeps.and finally, they gave up. Amazing what persistence can do. Amazing what imagination can do!

My Introduction to Mind-Over-Matter

When I reached six years old, my family moved into a new house, away from the old neighborhood, away from my friends, away from familiarity. The new house, eight years later, ended up being the favorite house of my life, but on that first night it was a place of terror. Dad took Mom out for a late night on the town and in their place was a baby sitter. Was she the sitter from hell? I couldnt tell, but at that moment she might as well have been. This new house seemed huge! My bedroom was on the second floor at the tip of a long L-shaped hall. My siblings bedrooms were all at the opposite end of the L. Right in the middle were the main stairs, dividing the long span between my room and my siblings. I was separated from my fighting force, my gang, my homies, by a long stretch of hall and some stairs. This was not good. I could be taken by monsters easily. After my parents left for their night on the town and just as I started to fall asleep, the hall lights started to flicker on and off. Now I knew I had outwitted the wolves in the old house, but here in the new house the monsters were not yet identified, so seeing the lights flicker could only lead to one conclusion: the monsters know how to work the lights!

My Introduction to Mind-Over-Matter | 7

Oh no, not again! I am not prepared for this. What am I going to do!? If I run into the hall, theyll get me for sureunlessif I sneak up to the elbow of the Land peek around the corneras long as they havent turned off the lights, maybe I can see to make a dash to my sisters room and safety! So I watch the lights. They are staying off. Sht! Ill have to risk it. To be caught alone this far from the herd Slowly on my hands and knees I creep to the corner of the L, trying to stay low and invisible. Im sure the monsters can hear my loudly-beating heart. I reach the corner and peak around. It is pitch black. Slowly, slowly I inch my way around the corner, feeling the nubby carpet under my hands and knees, flinching at the periodic squeaks of the old wooden floor under the carpet. As I approach the top of the stairs, I make an executive decision (the stairs were between me and my sisters room): I have to make a run for it. Peering into the black hole created by the stairs falling away from the second floor, I make a mad dash to their room. Luckily their door is open! I am in like a flash and hop onto Karens bed. Whew! The monsters must have been playing cards. Safety! Can I sleep in your bed tonight? I whisper frantically, trying not to reveal my terror either to the monsters or my sister. (Its important to let the women in your life know you are brave so they can feel secure.) Why? Karen asks in a not-at-all comforting tone. I cringe because shes talking way too loud. The lights were flashing, I gasp. The monsters know how to work the lights! I am sure I have just discovered a fearsome truth. My sister, always an immensely practical person, lets out a big sigh as if, Well, we have to humor the little ones or There is no help for this idiot. She pulls back the covers and lets me crawl in next to her. Turns out Im not the only idiot. Before long, all five of us are squished into Karens bed! To this day she still pretends we took advantage of the situation, as if she doesnt realize just how important this was to us! After all, Karen didnt have anyone to do this for her. The next morning she took us all out to the top of the stairs and showed us there were a set of three-way switches that controlled the hall and stair lighting. At the bottom of the stairs

8 | The Student

were a matching set of switches. The baby sitter had simply played with the switches, turning the lights on and off. Mystery solved, no monsters. Wise older sister! At this particular house, my room was above the kitchen. I grew to love my room at the end of the hall except for those nights my father came home drunk. My father was a fairly large man, 6 1, with a massive belly. He weighed in well over 300 pounds. Beer had been his vice for as long as I could remember and his coming home drunk was a regular occurrence. Since my bedroom was above the kitchen I was privy to most of his late night rendezvous with the refrigerator and to the yelling matches with my mother when he was loud enough to awaken her. Late one night in Augustabout 2:00 AmI was tucked into bed, except for my feet, when I heard my father come home. Immediately my chest tightened and my breathing went shallow. His return at this hour never had a good outcome. Would this be an evening of eating, frying liver sausage and stinking up the house; an evening of yelling or worse? I felt personally responsible for their arguments because often my mother screamed about the burden of five children and his lack of financial support. Clearly children were a terrible financial problem. I decided right there that I wouldnt have children I couldnt support. On this particular hot and humid night, Dad didnt choose food or yellingbut worse. I heard him stumbling up the stairs, wood creaking under his weight every step of the way. I heard him pause at the top of the stairs. Oh no, would he come to my room or my sisters? I knew the others were awake, wondering the exact same thing. This evening, he chose me. My stomach started to churn; there was no escape. Dad would be here in a few moments. The hall creaked as he came around the corner of the L. When he opened the door to my room, a crack of light sparked and grew until he was silhouetted in the door. Here it comes, I thought, the dreaded cycle of steps I suffered through several times a month. Step 1: He stumbles to the bed and flops down on top of me crosswise like a sack of meal on a loading dock. The impact of his enormous bulk knocks the wind out of me. I want to cry but dont

My Introduction to Mind-Over-Matter | 9

have the breath to do it. Under his 300 pounds, my breathing is forced shallow, but at least I am still breathing. Step 1 finished, yeah, on to Step 2. As usual, he wants to be sure he has my absolute attention so he props himself on one elbow, looks me directly in the eye and, like a politician in love with his own voice, starts to enlighten the masses. Step 2: His speeches usually focus on the meaning of life. You can be great! or Those crooked lawyers and judges which was hypocritical because he himself was a crooked lawyer. As he contemplates the perfect knowledge he is to bestow upon me this evening he puckers his fat cheeks and lips so that they distend unnaturally. Leaning in to within four inches of my nose and exuding extreme alcohol breath, he informs me about his difficult times and how we are going to go after those SOBs using the law. Somewhere in the drunken stupor gobble-dee-gook, he eventually comes out with, Mind-Over-Matter. Its all about Mind-Over-Matter. I am getting angry. I want to yell, Get off me you fat pig! But what about loving your father, what about a father loving his son? Anger overtakes me, chokes me. Butwhataboutlove? Honoring your father? Where is love? I dont understand. Acid boils up to my throat. I can feel a monster growing within me, gaining force, feeding off my anger. But I dont want to hate my father. What happened to the love? Whats happening to me? I dont want to be a father-hating type person. I feel the hate coercing me, changing me, hardening my heart. As the hate grew, it consumed me. In that moment, what little awareness of love and joy lodged in my heart disappeared. It was slipping through my fingers, like that extra package when you try to carry too much. The one on top starts to slide, first slowly, then faster. With a quick movement you try to compensate, but its too late. The leaning tower is already in motion; collapse is imminent. In its place grew something I didnt know existed, something terrible, hateful, angryan internal monster. The monstrous part of me that wants to crush the world, destroy all that comes nearhas no concern for right or wrong, love or hate responds through violence and destruction to all. Caught between this internal monster and the drunken shell of a father trapping me under his weight, how could I hang

10 | The Student

onto myself? I felt like an experimental rat in a cage where the floor gives an electrical shock over and over with no way out. I felt the edge of despair coming close. Surrenderinevitable like a child at an amusement park, at the top of a long slide, balancing on the edge, unsure if in his heart of hearts, he wants to take the plunge, but after that first step, theres no going back. You slide, uncontrolled, no way to ask for a re-do; you just keep going, further and further down. As I gave in to despair, the monster, being cut off from my anger, subsided. SurrenderApathyinevitable. Step 2 was done. I had survived. Now Step 3, the most physically challenging part. Step 3: He passed out on top of me. His full weight crushed my chest. I could barely move. I prayed he would wake up, but he just lay there. He was out cold. Now what. Resigning myself to the task at hand, I squiggled left, then right, then left again, over and over, trying to get free. Gradually my arms came free. More squiggling freed my chest, then abdomen, then hips and legs to the knees. After an eternity of squiggling (probably 30 minutes), it became more difficult because the bed seemed to be fighting my attempts to free my legs. But I knew the ordeal was almost over. I twisted and wiggled, twisted and wiggled and finally pulled out first one leg and than the other. Exhausted and drenched, shivering and miserable, I spent the rest of the night sitting at the head of my bed. I could not risk him waking up, finding me gone and being insulted that I had pulled away. The next morning, my dad had no recall whatsoever, but my siblings gathered and asked which speech he had given. Within the Rinzel club of five siblings, we had code numbers for Dads drunken speeches. Hey, did Dad give you speech 232 last night? No, it was 181. Each of us walked away with something different from my dads drunken nonsense. I grabbed onto his statement about MindOver-Matter. It intrigued me to no end because Ive always been able to see behind the curtain on physical objects, how they work, how they are made and where their limits lie. But here this MindOver-Matter principle stood almost daring me to peek behind the

My Introduction to Mind-Over-Matter | 11

curtain. The possibility of understanding Mind-Over-Matter captured my imagination. Somehow I felt this was right even though it didnt fit any structure Id been taught in this world. Of course, just because I believed in Mind-Over-Matter didnt mean others did. Ill believe it when I see it my mother would say. Spiritual Fantasy said my older sister Karen. My dad would say he didnt know for sure and without proof, what good was it? Funny that he didnt remember the idea came from him. Its hard to hold onto your dreams when the people close to you say no, but somehow I knew this was right. I knew this was true, but I didnt have a clue how to go about proving it or even using it in my life. At that moment, I made a major childhood decision: I will figure this out and prove its true. This choice, unlike protecting myself from the wolves, was not based in fear; rather, it was the first time I felt I had a quest bigger than myselfa search for truthfor glory. I am really going to find the key to Mind-Over-Matter, I vowed. From that point on, watching the world, looking for signs, hints or anything that might lead to fulfillment of that dream; became a daily activity. But the connection between Mind-Over-Matter and Imagination didnt show up for several years.

A Guided Imagery Adventure

When I was about eight, one piece of the mind-over-matter puzzle came unknowingly from my mother. She was a Girl Scout Troop leader and would take the Troop camping at least once a year. My siblings and I were dragged along to help with chores and camp. Every evening after finishing dinner, chores and the evening scouting activities, I hopped into my bunk near the fireplace and tucked myself in (except for my feet to let the wolves know I was still awake). As the girls jostled for their spaces, my mother spoke up, Everyone get into bed and quiet down. Then she began, We are going on an imaginary journey. I will describe the journey and you make an image of it in your minds. An imaginary journeythis was a good ideamy life in the imaginary world thrives! Think of an enjoyable place in nature where you are safe and comfortable, my mother began. That was easy, right there in the woods outside the cabin was one of my favorite places. I could see the trees surrounding me, protecting me from the wind. I could feel the grass under my feet and the warmth of the sun on my face. After a pause, she continued. Imagine a huge, friendly eagle flying overhead and coming down to land next to you. You and that eagle get along very well.

A Guided Imagery Adventure | 13

I saw my eagle fly in. He was big, maybe 10 times my size and his wings were brown with black flecks. He landed next to me and nodded as if to smile in greeting. As we sat there, he offered me his foot, so I climbed on. I felt his other foot come over and gently grab me around my waist to be sure I was secure. Then, with a surge of power, we launched into the air. I could feel the force of the lift as he used his huge wings to lift us up. I saw the land grow distant below and the horizon stretch far out in front. The eagles wings beat a wavelike rhythm starting from its shoulders and carrying out to the tips of its wings. It was amazing to see the wingtips bend up and down with each stroke. I looked down at the landscape racing by; I could see so far. It was beautiful! And the air up high smelled so sweet. We zoomed through clouds as if they were an obstacle course made for our fun. What an amazing experience to fly with an eagle! Even the plane flights my father took me on couldnt match this. The eagle carried me over mountaintops and across the land to a beautiful lake with a sandy beach. We headed down to the shore. He carefully placed me on the beach and promised to return for me after I finished my search for treasure. I looked around on the beach, at first seeing only the sand glistening like diamonds. Suddenly a shovel miraculously appeared out of thin air, just the tool to dig up a treasure chest. The sparkling sand on the shovel was heavy and trickled off as if in an hourglass. I dug and dug, making a hole deeper and wider with each shovelful until I heard that fateful sound of shovel hitting hollow wooden chest. I found it, a treasure chest! Was it jewels? Money? Adventure? Time would tell. This imagination journey was so cool! I got on my knees, pulled out the chest, and brushed off the gritty sand. It was an old wooden pirate chest with all kinds of pirate writing on it. On each end were worn leather handles and the hasp on the front was old, rusted and thankfully unlocked. My treasure! I turned that over and over in my mind, never having had a treasure before. Just about that time, I heard my mothers disembodied voice, out on this beach, in the middle of the nowhere, telling me, This treasure is yours alone, it was made for you and is exactly what you need at this moment.

14 | The Student

YES, my very own treasure, just for me! Lifting the hasp with my right hand and guiding the lid up with my left, I opened the chest to find a parchment. My treasure was a parchment Thats it? Just a parchment? This is disappointing. If Im going to find an imaginary treasure then at least it should be something useful like money or chocolate or a new bikenot a piece of paper. Oh well. So what could this parchment possibly say that is so important? Upon unrolling the parchment, I read, Mind-Over-Matter is True. Wow, that wasnt what I expected. All of a sudden, the eagle was back. I quickly placed the parchment in my backpack, which also just magically appeared, and the eagle picked me up. We flew like the wind, back over the mountains to my home. I was ecstatic at having my first adventure using what I came to know as guided imagery. What a wonderful way to see what was happening inside me. The parchment told me exactly what I needed to hear at that precise moment, giving me hope on my quest. Guided imagery turned out to be a good way to check and see what was going on inside.

Focused Images Get Results

When I hit 14 years old, we moved to a new house and this time the hall lights did not have the same terrifying effect on me. Instead, my fears centered around going to a new school for eighth grade. The previous year (seventh grade) I had been bused to a new school where there was a lot of racial tension and violence. So now, once again, I faced the adolescents agony of starting all over with making friends, new rules and unfamiliar locations. There wasnt time to make lasting friendships during seventh grade and I knew I would be switching schools again to go to my Dads high school alma mater in ninth grade, so eighth grade did not look promising. The prospect of three new schools in three years was depressing. I was an awkward teenager already, so going to a new school was like sentencing me to doing dishes for the rest of my life. But luckily in eighth grade my fears were unfounded, and I met my soon-to-be best friend Dan. Dan was skinny, short and wiry with a face full of freckles. He was the kind of kid who had full coordination capabilities when he stepped out of his mothers womb. Dan was a sports maniac. He could play any sport that required speed and finesse. Excellent at pool, soccer, golf, shooting, Frisbee, you name it; Dan was the boy

16 | The Student

to beat! Unfortunately for him, he was also of slight build, so while he was recognized as a sports guy early on, as other boys grew much bigger and more powerful, he lost his ranking in sports. Eventually as others surpassed him physically, they started bullying him. Consequently, he and I hung out together, the lost geek and the disfavored jock. While Dan was at his height in sports, I wasnt even on the playing field. Oh was that my foot? I thought it was yours. Another talent of Dans was a natural understanding of mindover-matter and that intrigued me no end. He won almost every drawing he entered and consistently made money on stocks with smart investment choices. His father taught him early on how to handle money and Dans innate abilities allowed him to excel. At 14 years old, I didnt have a clue what investing was or how he always could be so lucky. I felt continuous envy, jealousy and resentment because of his luck. I pestered him, Dan, how do you always win? Whats your strategy? How do you pick stocks so well? Ive always been lucky was his laconic response. Now my resentment would ratchet up a notch and my face would flush with anger. (Monster alert!) Why the hell wont he just tell me? Id wail to myself. Does he think Im stupid or not able to get it? One time there was a car give away at a local dealership. We drove together to the dealership in his fathers car. On the drive I was already boiling over with expected resentment. Tell me how you win all the time, I demanded loudly. Dan stayed quiet. The anticipation was high because each of us had just turned 16 and had our new drivers licenses. We both really wanted to win this car! I was thinking about how Id never won anything before and wouldnt it be amazing if I did win thisand why wont Dan tell me the secret? At the same time, I knew Dan was concentrating on winning and that he had figured out a mind-over-matter strategy. Wouldnt ya know, Dan won the car! He actually won that car at age 16, fresh from just getting his drivers license. I was a poor sport. Completely unable to be happy for him, I yelled, How in the world did you do that!? This time, rather than give me the same old luck story, he paused and got a far away look in his eyes. I think he was weighing the risk of telling the truth. Quietly, almost as a sigh, he let it slip: I see the event go my way before it happens.

Focused Images Get Results | 17

Sounded like mind-over-matter to me. I didnt say a word, preserving an important moment between us. He drove me home in his new car. Standing in front of my house with my hands in my pockets, I tried my best to look casual and disguise my high excitement. I pressed him to tell me what he meant by seeing it before it happens. Dan looked pensive. He had broken his silence and decided he could trust me. His long, thin face scrunched up, betraying his ambivalence and the sheer difficulty of explaining something so weird but so surely a part of himself. Then, he reached a decision and picked up a rock from the ground and handed it to me. Here, take this rock. With a growing intensity in his eyes, he said, You see the stop sign on the corner? The stop sign was about 75 feet away. High school physical education class had already determined I couldnt throw that far let alone hit it a target, but I was listening. Close your eyes, he instructed. I had seen what was coming and was growing skeptical but certainly didnt expect this twist. Yet I had asked, desperately wanted to learn, and knew enough to play along. Close them and imagine throwing the rock. See it fly all the way to the stop sign and hit it. Keep your eyes closed until you finish the image and really feel the rock connecting with the sign and with your arm. Make the whole thing an extension of your arm. This was new. Wow! Maybe the instruction I had been searching for finally arrived. I closed my eyes, felt the weight of the rock in my hand. It wasnt too small, wasnt too big. There were a couple sharp edges and jagged points. I bounced it in my hand until the grip felt just right. ThenI focused; totally focusedon the stop sign. In my minds eye, my arm cocked back, I could feel my shoulder rotate and reach backwardfollowed by rushing forward in a big arc. I saw the arc go from my arm to the sign and how they were connected by the rocks trajectory. The rocks trajectory seemed to be a continuation of my arm. At the apex of my swing, my hand let the rock fly. It arched up toward the sky in a smooth curve, leveled off and started its downward trajectory toward the sign, all the while being connected with my arm. I watched it flow through the trajectory all the way and bounce off the center of the sign. Doing

18 | The Student

my best to include sensations of sight, sound and touch just like in the imaginary eagle journey, I even pretended to hear the loud bang of the metal sign protesting the intrusive rocks contact. When I felt the image was strong and my arm was connected to the sign, I opened my eyes and without thinking, staying fully immersed in the feeling of connection to the sign, I cocked my arm, took a step and let it fly. It felt glorious! Everything exactly where it should be; at exactly the right time. The rock flew true and accurate, right to the middle of the sign where it bounced off and made a loud bang. Holy Cow! I had found two of the keys! Focus! Focusing completely on one image and a second key: Bring in as many senses, sight, sound, touch as you can to make the image real. Even Dan was impressed. He laughed and said, I didnt expect that to work!

Exercise 1: See it, Feel it, Experience it.

Give it a shot, try something physical, something simple that you dont normally do. Make the image from beginning to end, feel it, see it, hear it, experience it happening exactly as you want it tothen actually do it. Success? If yes, cool, if no, maybe adjust the image a bit or try to focus so completely on the image that the rest of the world disappearsthen do it again.

Past Images Can Effect the Present

Shortly after my rock throwing experience, an old habit came back to bite (and instruct) me. My brushes with the wolves at night had faded from memory but the unconscious effects of those fears had not. My youth was rapidly fading, or so I thought, leading me to believe the wolf experiences were a thing of the past. To my surprise, they werent! I was sitting in the kitchen having breakfast, contemplating an elusive aspect of Mind-Over-Matter, Belief, when Karen asked me what I was doing awake in the middle of the night. At first I started to try and decipher what she was going for. Why was SHE awake in the middle of the night? And what was it to her that I was awakewait a minuteI wasnt awake. What is she talking about? Something weird was going on and I suspected she was at the bottom of it. Rather confused, I stammered, What? I wasnt awake. You had to be, she retorted. I saw you wiggling your feet to the beat of whatever music you were listening to. Huh? Could I be so unaware of my deepest impressions that my feet were still moving at night to scare off the wolves? Suddenly, as if a dam had just burst, the impacts of my imagination flowed into my awareness like rushing water into a huge pipe trying to

20 | The Student

drown me. I felt overwhelmed and close to exploding! The reason I couldnt sleep with weight on my legs or feet was because, somewhere deep inside, I still fearedstill believed inthe wolves; so I needed to allow my feet to wiggle. Each night when I crawled into bed and felt my feet constricted by the tucked in blankets, Id immediately kick against the covers until they were un-tucked, allowing my feet to stick out. My feet and legs needed to be free! Anything lying on my legs, including the family cat, led to sore legs in the morning. Nothing on my legs, no problem. After this awareness came to light, and the true culprit (my imagination) was identified, my need to sleep with my feet sticking out disappeared. This raised some exciting new questions: If my mind believed what my imagination created, so much so that I would actually have physical reactions to it, could this be another example of mind-overmatter? What if I could use that understanding to change some of the things I dont like about myself or my life?

Exercise 2: Hidden Decisions

Where has your imagination tripped you up with long term consequences? Think about memorable experiences or hidden (secret?) decisions you made as a child possibly based on imagination.

Hidden Activities of the Mind

While my inner quest was in full swing, my parents marriage was on the rocks. In fact, they were getting a divorce. It was a long and messy divorce with both parents using whatever dirty tricks they could come up with to put the other through hell. During all this chaos, I felt I was being a loyal son to my mother, right up until a late December evening when I was 17 years old. Milwaukee had seen a record breaking snowfall that day, dumping over 12 inches in less than 24 hours. Everything came to a stop. My brother-in-law and I both worked at UPS across town and when the evening shift ended at 10 p.m., he drove me home through all the snow. As I walked into the house, I heard sobbing coming from somewhere past the kitchen. I followed the sobbing all the way to the bathroom and there was my mother, in the bathtub, late at night, grouting the tile walls. This scene confused me: here is my mother sitting on a stool in the bathtub with a scarf tied around her head like the women in those old Mr. Clean commercials; I notice yellow and white tile squares all around on the floor and edges of the bathtub, white grout in a bucket, some trowels, and Kleenex tissue making a pile in the bathroom sink from all her sobbing. Outside is the worst snow

22 | The Student

in many moons, and it is 10:30 p.m. I hadnt yet personally experienced the wonderful release of tension found in manual labor, so I didnt understand why, at the height of her broken life, she would be fixing the bathroom. I assumed somehow the bathtub grout was responsible for her distress. Id worked on cars and on plumbing where one thing after another broke, but my usual reaction was cursing, not sobbing. At that moment, it seemed to me, if it made her THAT unhappy, maybe it would be best for her to stop grouting. It just didnt make any sense. Mother, whats going on? I queried, hoping to sort out this strange scene. Without even turning to look at me, she spat out, So when are you going to betray me?!!! with all the snake venom she could muster. And believe meshe could muster a lot! Her words felt like a construction wrecking ball had just crashed into my chest. My head started spinning, my balance faltered and I collapsed on the toilet seat. It was the shock of her betrayal! After having listened to years of her unending anger at my father, telling me how awful men are, telling me how Im just like him, and feeling like I had stayed supportive of her through thick and thin, while despairing that she failed to appreciate any of my efforts to console her, something snapped. Inside me, the monster arose. The tension in my muscles tightened alarmingly; my anger was palpable and expanding into my hands. Realizing the monster was loose, I knew I needed to save myself and her. I dashed out of the bathroom, grabbed my coat, scarf, hat and boots and left. Damn, what a day to have 12 inches of snow, I thought, as the door slammed behind me and I started trudging aimlessly through the snow. I wandered down our street to the main drag and on into downtown. It was kind of fun once I got going. No one was around; I was alone with my thoughts. Twelve inches of snow does a good job of muffling all sound and stopping the hustle and bustle of daily activities. The streets were completely empty, absolutely quiet, and the snow had cleaned the air. I was bundled up nice and warm. It was really beautiful, a winter wonderland. Even the need to trudge through the deep snow was great. It was kind of

Hidden Activities of the Mind | 23

comforting, expending my anger energy, giving me time to think, giving me a good cardiac workout, my heart pounding away in my chest, the feeling of being crushed lifting gradually as I plodded along. This would have been a better way for my mother to release her anger, I thought. The next day, I found out that she had just had a major argument with my 16-year-old sister, had disowned her and then threw her out of the house. At the time, I had no way of knowing that my mothers favorite punishment would become to disown whichever child she perceived as having slighted her. Unfortunately as she got older, the perceived slights would become bigger and bigger, even though most times they werent slights at all. Mind-OverMatter in reverse? If mind-over-matter can create results in my life based on imagining the positive, is my mother creating negative results using the same principle? People who have such hard lives, as she didis some of it self created? I prayed that I would not follow her pattern of negative thinking. Living has challenges enough without creation of extra negative experiences. This sparked a question, What actually flows through my mind on a daily basis? I didnt know, having never even tried to watch. My quest beckoned me with a new task: examining my daily stories to see what my imagination was doing behind my back!

Exercise 3: Daily Imagination Stories

What stories does your imagination hide in your daily thoughts? Do your thoughts follow patterns? Look at the general tone of your thoughts as a whole. Are they frequently negative? Are they focused on success or failure? Dont look at the content, look at the general focus.

Romantic Detours

Unsurprisingly, most of my daily stories were rather predictable for my age: Fun and sex! My first love and subsequent broken heart were at the hands of a Greek girl named Natalie. Her shoulder length hair was black as the night, her hips full and her breasts small. She had what I later dubbed as fire in the belly, the intense energy emanating from her hips that said, I was born to have a child, to live the myth of the mother! Natalie was beautiful. We were both 18. Her dark eyes expressed love, anger and passion with such ferocity she seemed to transform into the mythological Greek god of whatever emotion she was expressing. On one occasion, as I was holding her closeshe softly said, Sa Ga Po. Its Greek for I love you. Thats sweet, I said, So, teach me some curse words in Greek. I dont think she was especially happy I asked at that moment, but oh well. Hooruney Scata she said. That sounds good, what does it mean? I pushed. Curtly she said, Pig Shit. Natalie and I had good times. We routinely walked to and

Romantic Detours | 25

from campus together and one particular day, I suddenly grabbed her and pulled her to me. Damn it felt so good to have her close. I loved her smell and I couldnt help but notice how our bodies just melted into each other. As we stood there, only part of me could be in contact with her at any given moment and I wanted to feel all of her pressed against me at one time. It was frustration mixed with pleasure, like the jet in a hot tub hitting your back muscles, coaxing your back to relax, feeling so rejuvenating, but alas, to get the same feeling in your legs, you had to shift to where it didnt get to your back anymore. Being able to only touch a little of our bodies together at one time was sweet torture! In an attempt to coerce our bodies into prolonged contact, we fell into a silly version of the game of twister. I pretended she was a lamppost I was trying to peek around, yelling loudly, Where did Natalie go? She immediately got in the groove and pretended to peek around me, yelling, Larry, where are you? This escalated into searching far and wide for each other, our bodies intertwining as each of us tried to outdo the other in outrageous postures while expecting our partner to create some form of stability. Luckily, we didnt fall over! That impromptu twister game got me all riled up and later we had our first sexual experience together. Neither of us was ready to go all the way, but half-way seemed to work just fine, our hands and tongues substituting for more serious appendages. Clumsy is as clumsy does, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Afterwards, while we were cuddling together she started crying. Oh, no I thought, My first time out and already Ive got her unhappy enough to cry! She assured me her crying was good. Beyond the sensual closeness we shared, Natalie and I had a very intuitive connection. I could be going about my day and suddenly I would think of her; shed just pop into my head. One time I got the very clear thought, If I go around this building, I will run into her. Sure enough, I went around the building and there she was. Natalie and I had other experiences that convinced me we were connected at a higher level. One such experience stood out and actually turned out to be useful. Natalie was an artist always carrying a sketch pad. She had come over in the afternoon to hang out

26 | The Student

and do homework. During one stretch break, I took advantage of her trip to the restroom and grabbed her drawing pad. I wrote in huge capital letters on the second to last page of her pad, Natalie, Your Special. Yes I admit it, I spelled Youre incorrectly, so sue me. Several days later, she called me in great distress. She had been working on a particular drawing, some form of fairy with wings and a flowing gown, quite a detailed drawing. I answered the phone and was greeted with sobsHey Natalie, whats wrong?sniffles and sobsmore sobs, Tell me! I pleaded. No response except more sniffles and sobs. After a few minutes with only sniffles and sobs coming from the other end of the phone line, I took action. Look at the second to last page of your drawing pad, I told her, trying to sound loving yet quietly commanding. She argued with me, Why should I do that? Is this something stupid?!!! came the accusation. I knew she would argue. Why do women always argue? No. I insisted, Its not something stupid, just look at the second to last page. Women! Finally she acquiescedreliefher sobs changed to little laughs. You spelled -Youre - incorrectly. she pointed out, but I could hear the smile in her voice as she said it, so it felt all warm and fuzzy. Again, Women! I spilled coffee on my fairy drawing, was all the explanation I ever got for the tempestuous phone call. After she had a couple days recovery time, she renamed her drawing, Victoria amidstthe coffee. Sometimes the old adage, all good things must come to an end is actually true. After about nine months of dating, (toward the end of summer), Natalie seemed to be growing distant. Whats going on? I inquired several times before she finally admitted she was starting to see a guy she met at work and wouldnt be dating me anymore. Crash! Crash and burn! That hurt! So this is what all the country songs are about, I mused to myself. Someone gave me a book about letting go of love and that wise old saying, If you love

Romantic Detours | 27

something let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours; if it doesnt, it never was entered my life. WellNatalie never was. For the rest of the summer I came to know intimately Neil Diamonds many songs devoted to heartache and I wrote lots of bad poetry. Love Love that I had Oh is now so sad How can she forget? Hide? Ignore? Deny. I am getting strong, Realizing my potential! And a little later, I am still hurt. I cant shut off the feeling Love Its gone. Caring I try notIt doesnt work. Hurt leaves awhile, then Suddenly, Returns. I do not falter as far as before I slide down three rungs Rather than seven. Bleah!

Higher Connections to the Ones We Love

They say, to get over one love, you need to find another. Thats how it went with my Natalie heartache. Maria was a tough-as-nails Addiction Recovery Counselor. She frequently, humorously, described the therapy groups she led at the local penitentiary, complete with dramatic confrontations with angry, addicted prisoners. Each of her accounts sounded as if she felt lucky to get out alive; yet, knowing her, I felt sorry for any prisoner who dared cross her. She stood barely five foot five inches tall but packed the fire of a hand grenade. Maria and I met through our local Catholic Church. The church was unusual in that the priest and organizers allowed parishioners to lead mass. The priest was responsible for those items that are required by the priest, leaving the parishioners to organize whatever additional presentations they wanted. I met Maria during one of the masses where the organizer had us present an interpretive dance for one of the Catholic holidays. Maria was a pretty good modern dancer and looked great in a body suit at dance practice. She had long, dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Her round rump presented wonderfully in a form-hugging purple body suit. Hey, who says church cant be fun?!! After seeing her bounce

Higher Connections to the Ones We Love | 29

around in the church dance, I asked her out. She agreed after a slight hesitation. That hesitation was just enough to make me uneasy. I wondered what was really going on behind the scenes, but since I couldnt put my finger on it, I thought I still had a chance romantically. We went out a number of times, each time staying at a platonic level. When I would put my arm around her, she didnt respond. It was as if I was there alone with my arm around empty space. Still I was falling for her. We had a great connection when we talked and shared ideas, spending hours on the phone and in coffee shops exploring each others philosophies of life, beliefs and adventures. She was the first woman Id ever had discussions with concerning the most intimate details of my beliefs. We were getting very close emotionally, yet still not physically connecting. I wasnt sure what this meant. One afternoon after finishing our coffee in a nice little Bistro off Downer Avenue (no pun intended) everything became clear. When I tried to kiss her, she turned her head away. My head spunfears about myself popping into my mind, not good enough, not handsome enoughetcetc. My frustration reached a peak, driving me to gather my courage and ask, Whats going on? I thought we were getting close; yet you arent open to me physically. Of course, by asking, I was opening my heart further, leaving my fate in her hands. Marias concerned look said it all. Here it comes, I thought, just friends. Shyly she told me, Im interested in Frank. Frank happened to be another guy in the church dance that I always seemed to be in competition with. Boy was I pissed! She rejects me for my main competition! I stormed out feeling utterly betrayed. If only she had been up frontif only.A string of blame ran through my mind. More searing thoughts boiled up, Should I be friends with her? Was she dishonest? Why didnt she tell me? And the inner crosstalk was just getting started! My thoughts became convoluted, like a highway detour sign that first turns you left, then right, then doubles back, then hops overon and onintensity increasing as each newly-percolated question went unanswered. I dont know what I should believe anymore!!!!!!! Women always send me into a tailspin. Luckily, my job at the time was truck driving and I had a shift that night. Driving has always been a wonderful release for me;

30 | The Student

magical, my cure for all ills. The open roadlate at nightmillions of starsno one aroundengine purring and the dark night flowing by like a soft breeze on my face. I could let my mind ponder all manner of questions, allow emotions to fume, let anger erupt into loud yelling, all in the safety of my little metal box bouncing down the highway. But alas, the road on this fateful night had two purposes: to do my job, and to release Maria from my heart. Late in the night after my last stop, as the route started to wind down, a small town called Kiel came into my headlights. Kiel is a cute little Wisconsin town, very much like other Midwest towns with lots of elegant brick surrounded by large trees hanging over the roads, shrouding them like a tunnel. Its one of those respites away from the big city. I had been here before, many times; in the middle of the night at the edge of town, sitting next to Kiels swiftly flowing stream, listening to the water, enjoying the peace. Steering my truck into the parking lot next to the stream, the brakes made the requisite hiss at my pull on the air brake lever. In front of me, numerous barbeque pits were scattered around with no rhyme nor reason, like marbles on a playground in a childs game. To my right, I could hear the gurgling flow of the stream amidst the nights silence. Hopping down from the open cab door, my feelings for Maria started flowing unabated. A park in Wisconsin in a small townat three in the morningprovides uninterrupted solitude. No cars, no people, no mosquitoes. I walked and I talked. I talked to Maria as if she were there with me, explaining how I felt, how I loved her, how I was crushed by her revelation of love for another. My conversation flowed forth, starting like a wind storm, picking up desert sand and throwing it every which waygradually calming to a gentle breeze rocking the trees back and forth, as if in a mothers armsand finally, after almost 45 minutes, I found peace. Forgiveness flowed. I realized I loved her whether she loved me or not. It was O.K. My emotional bloodletting had taken me several times around the park, walking, discussing, cursing; winding up near the back of my truck. I hopped up on the truck and sat on the bumper. Looking at the sky, I addressed Maria directly, loudly proclaiming I forgave

Higher Connections to the Ones We Love | 31

her, hoping she could forgive me and that if she hooked up with Frankit was fine. A flood of relief poured through me and I wept. It was 3:50 a.m. I needed to get the truck back for the next shift so I hopped down from the bumper and made for the cab. Maria and I spoke several days later. I told her about my truck stop discussion. What time did this happen? she asked. Why? I responded thinking it was an unusual question. Her brow furrowed and a distant, pensive look spread across her face. I woke up about three in the morning, she said, not hungry, not thirsty, not able to sleep. Then just before four, I got a feeling of peace and was able to go back to sleep again. If I had any doubts about people being connected at a higher level, they all disappeared with that statement. Now that our friendship was back on even ground, Maria pushed me to contact a counselor, maybe from a feeling of guilt, maybe from a true desire to see me get past my repeated ups and downs with women. In response, I bemoaned my fate, Im looking for a male role model; a guy who has success with work and women. Im tired of making it up as I go along, I said irritably. My father was so messed up, and my mother was so pissed off at men, I dont know which end is up, I concluded, voicing my growing frustration. Then to lighten the mood, I did my best leering imitation of a macho construction worker, Hey Babyya got any suggestions? She looked laughingly at me, her eyes becoming little slits, Call this guy named Mark, hell get you on track. Mark turned out to be an ex-hippy who counseled returning veterans during the Vietnam era. He was a massive guy, six foot six, the kind who could play basketball in his sleep, yet with a real down-to-earth, gentle personality. At our first meeting we discussed my goal of getting over my bleeding heart, and although I was hesitant at first, my gut instinct told me to trust him. Mark would turn out to be pivotal in my Mind-Over-Matter quest.

32 | The Student

Exercise 4: Connection to Others

Have you ever noticed any signs of being connected to others? Ever know who was at the other end of the telephone when it rang? How about the statement, I was just thinking of you when you called?

Wrestling With Internal Crosstalk

The next day, my hesitancy returned. Maybe Im just not ready to do this. Maybe I need more time. Maybe I dont have the courage. Maybe Im just messed up all poured forth from my mind. This crosstalk, this second guessing, had always been a plague for me. Friends repeatedly told me I was too critical of myself. Lighten up, they said. For the first time, I saw what they were saying. My own internal crosstalk was my worst enemy. A philosopher once said, Ive seen the enemy and the enemy is me. Suddenly, in response to seeing the crosstalk as an internal enemy, a shift happened and I became separate from the crosstalk, rather than the target. It was like watching a small movie in my head in which the actor was me and the audience was me. This was a little weird and threw me off balance. My feelings ranged from detachment to total absorption in the movie. Mark and I were sitting in his office, he in his black leather chair and I in the comfy red chair with all the pillows. He was asking me questions and suggesting ideas to heal my heart. The movie was a replay of my session with him the previous day. I noticed that for each suggestion Mark made, my crosstalk came up with a counter argument explaining why it wouldnt work.

34 | The Student

In the movie, at first I went along with the crosstalk, just like a lemming headed for a cliff. Gently, my vision opened further, zooming out on my own life. I saw that my usual way of living was to go along with the crosstalk, never argue, never say, Hey, that crosstalk doesnt make sense! I just followed along. As if in response to zooming out, the observer in me examined some of the crosstalk coming up to battle Marks suggestions. Mark said, You could do volunteer work that you were interested in, such as for your church, and meet women that way. My crosstalk responded with, But I tried that with Maria and she dumped me. Given there were a lot of other women at my church, it became clearthe argument used by my crosstalk wasnt really valid. It was more like a knee jerk response out of fear. Reflexes made without thought; being on automatic pilot. As I watched the movie unfold, another crosstalk statement immediately connected me to its origins: my mothers critical words, which she so frequently and generously offered. The movie shifted to a memory where I was loading a large wooden chest into her car. After I opened her trunk to put the chest in, she smugly stated, Thats a lesson in futility! She presented it with her usual acidic tonality as if there was something wrong with my trying to put the chest in the trunk. Her words elicited mixed feelings of anger and humiliation. Was I so dumb that I couldnt see the chest was too big for the trunk? What an idiot I am. Looking back to the actual experience, I did get the chest in the trunk, so her statement was way off base. Her statement probably bubbled up from her own unending crosstalk. Unfortunately, being in lemming mode, I bought into her negative attitude and walked away feeling humiliated. So here I was, current day, watching my movie, choosing whether or not to go to counseling with Mark based on past experienceletting my crosstalk run my life. I needed to change that! While watching this internal video, another thing became clear. The knee jerk crosstalk always had an opinion on everything. For any idea presented, it had to have a rebuttal. It couldnt remain quiet, couldnt avoid arguing, even when its rebuttal was just plain silly. The critical content didnt really matter, even the idea being

Wrestling With Internal Crosstalk | 35

rebuked didnt matter; all that mattered was that a critical rebuke (no matter how ludicrous) was presented. One idea earns one critical rebuke: thats the formula. The crosstalk must have the last word; those are the rules. What a way to live. I decided to continue my sessions with Mark. Maybe I could tame the crosstalk beast. After deciding to continue with counseling, it occurred to me Mark might know guided imagery as a technique for dealing with my demonsexactly what Id been searching for. An old Zen Buddhist saying is: When the student is ready the teacher will come. So Mark was my teacher. He could teach me about MindOver-Matter. We discussed this and he agreed to explore it with me. During one session, Mark said, Using your imagination, its important to develop a place where you feel secure. Then, use that image to counter feelings of insecurity. Hey, that sounds great, I said, Id love to develop a place where I feel secure. Alright, he said, sit back and create an image of a locked door that only you can unlock. In your image, use as many physical senses as you can to make the door seem as real as possible. Aha, he was reinforcing the idea of using the physical senses to make the image more real. Ive always been an engineer at heart, overbuilding everything. Even a world catastrophe couldnt bring down my overbuilt creations and this door image was no different. Upon hearing his request, my analysis side immediately dove into the task of designing a secure door only unlocked by me. First it would need a force field to repel intruders and second it needed to disappear when I wasnt using it. The perfect door. I relaxed and focused on the image. Easy, piece of cake; counseling was starting to be fun. Upon this thought, my mind started to wander focus Larry, focus. Remember, part of creating a good image is focus. Focus on the door! Alright, I have an image of my door and can feel my hand on the doorknob and hear the hinges creaking as I open it. The door opened onto a medium size room, sort of a medical office/lounge area/research area/fire pit. I walked in, carefully stepping down the several stairs to the floor. The temperature in the

36 | The Student

room was perfect, kind of like Goldilocks porridge. This is kind of a cool image, I thought. I wonder what will happen next? Mark asked me to look to the right and identify what was in the room. On my right was the fire pit. It was an interesting fire pit in that it had a hole in the center. I could lower items into it or pull them out of the center. Near the fire pit was a red vinyl couch, the kind that was popular back in the 50s or 60s and would be considered hideous by todays standards. Who knows where I got that image (maybe from my parents old red station wagon), or why it would be connected to inner security for me. But this was imaginary and it did exude comfort, so what the heck. Behind the fire pit were two doors which Mark said, are there for a very specific reason. We may never need them. Unfortunately, we didnt need them so I never saw what was behind door number oneor two for that matter. As we continued exploring the room, on the left I noticed the operating table which made me feel slightly nauseous (as I hate seeing blood), an x-ray machine, a full length mirror and all the necessary items to perform any surgery I might need. Straight ahead was a counter top, similar to the kind found in greasy spoon diners where the waitress stands on one side and says with a thick New York accent, So whatll it be Mac? These items were starting to give me the idea that Im sort of a 60s blue collar kind of guy on the inside; all I needed to hear was a little Doo-Wop! On the wall behind the counter were books, all kinds of research type books. Any book I could imagine, literally, was there. Mark directed me over to the mirror on the left. Is there anything you want to work on? Yes, I replied with a slow slurred hypnotic trance voice, I just got the side of my eye split open playing racquetball and would like to heal it. Mark said, Ok, look at yourself in the mirror. Hey, I look pretty good, I mused as I approached the mirror. Suddenly, my eye in the mirror became HUGE, especially the part where I had been hit! I could see the cut very clearly. It was like a funhouse mirror that expands your belly but shrinks your head and legs so you look like a bowling ball. Except, here only the side of my eye was the distorted target.

Wrestling With Internal Crosstalk | 37

I want you to imagine the injury melting away, leaving only smooth skin completely healed. Remember to focus and use as many physical senses as you can, Mark suggested. With a little focus, I imagined my fingers feeling the injury site as smooth and soft. I imagined feeling the injury site as warm. The injury became blurry and disappearedas if it had never been. After we were done, Mark looked perplexed. Im surprised it was your eye that showed up so big in the mirror. Why was that surprising? I responded, worried that I had made a mistake with this special training in Mind-Over-Matter. Young men your age usually see their genitals in the zoomed-in part of the mirro... he stated with an impish smile, as if admitting to a secret joke. But I guess at this moment, the fate of your eye is of more concern to you. My eye healed completely within two days without any scar. My genitals did not change. Mind over matter? Not proof enough to stop the crosstalk, but not deniable either. Toward the end of my sessions with Mark, he suggested I look into self-hypnosis as a means to relax and learn more about guided imagery. Following his advice, I started reading any book I could find about hypnosis, then trance states, then Neural Linguistic Programming. As I continued to read and learn more, the prospects of self-hypnosis took on a new dimension. The books promised all kinds of benefits: health, study improvement, and all the jazzed up silliness seen in current day television infomercials: Be stronger, faster, better! The prospects of becoming Superman-like really excited me, yet when I stepped back to observe my progress on the quest, I saw an image of a bull in a china shop. The bull first stumbles this way, then that, on the polished floor. His horns hook on shelves, knocking over plates and glasses, his swinging tail destroying priceless items. Startled at each sudden crash, reacting in fear and anger, his movements become more frantic, never realizing the sounds are direct results of his own movement. My progress on Mind-OverMatter was broken into a bunch of non-connected pieces. I saw that if I were to get a solid grasp on it, I needed a tool with focus, a

38 | The Student

method to systematically direct my intention and help me accomplish my goals. Could self-hypnosis be this tool?

Exercise 5: Identifying Crosstalk

What do you say to yourself just before you start a task? Do you say, I can handle this, no problem. Or do you think of other tasks that youve failed at, or of one moment in your life when someone told you how prone to failure you are? Is your crosstalk still protecting you from getting hurt in the world like it did when you were a kid; look both ways before crossing the street? Or does it now just stop you from succeeding; dont take a risk, most entrepreneurs and new companies end in bankruptcy?

Learning Self-Hypnosis

10

In my reading, I learned that hypnotists use body cues to measure trance depth. The deeper the trance, the more relaxed a persons facial muscles become, creating a symmetrical look in the subjects face. On top of that, with the right suggestion, a person in a deep trace will believe their arm is lighter than air and that it will float up off the table. A subject can be instructed to let their arm float up as they go deeper and deeper into trance. To do self hypnosis, I needed a cue to let me know I had reached a deep hypnotic state. The arm raise was the perfect cue. Now all I needed was to practice and see if my arm would rise. But where would I find the time? I was in school full-time working on a bachelors in Psychology and had a night shift job driving. How would I fit in hypnosis practice? Hmm, how about practicing during class? I had several math courses, a biology course, and one titled, History of Psychology. Tough choice, but History of Psychology wins! This history class was taught by a professor who was just plain wacko as far as the real world was concerned. The class could have been more appropriately called A Marxist interpretation of the history and meaning of psychology, so, in truth, this class was just

40 | The Student

asking for it. The teacher was a chubby guy whose head was really round, almost symmetrically so. His glasses fit his head as if they were made perfectly concentric and his full beard looked like grey hair on a basketball. Listening to him lecture was as exciting as watching wallpaper peeling. My goal was to hypnotize myself and get my hand to rise during his class. What I didnt consider was an arm raised in a classroom usually means, Ive got a question. At first, it wasnt so easy to do the hypnosis without falling asleep. The first time, I was awakened by the bustle of 30 students getting out of their chairs and shuffling out the door at the end of class. Oops. Try again and fall asleep again. Not good. Change tactics, sit up straight, look ahead at the blackboard; suggest to myself that I could stay awake while in a deep state of hypnosis and finally, success. Self-hypnosis with my eyes open! When I realized this worked, I got so excited it brought me right back out of the deep trance. Bummer, start over. What to do next? I decided it was best to just raise my hand and not the whole arm because I didnt want it to be confused with an arm raised in question. Asking a question of a terribly boring professor leads to further mind numbing information, but raising ones hand without having a question and without having a clue as to what was just said in the past 15 minutes is a sure road to tragedy. Unfortunately, my suggestions werent explicit enough; my arm went up and I got called on. My face went red. Oh crap, now what do I ask? Could you repeat that please? The teacher looked at me over the top of his glasses and said, Mr. Rinzel, what say you to PAYING ATTENTION for a change, shall we? Oops, he had noticed me falling asleep during previous classes. My new self-hypnosis mantra became, As my hand starts to feel light and float up of its own accord, my elbow will become heavy and stick to the desk. The lighter my hand becomes, the heavier my elbow becomes. As I went in and my hand rose up to shoulder level while my elbow stayed on the desk, I became elated. Victory! Just to make sure there wasnt any confusion, I set my chin on my hand as if I

Learning Self-Hypnosis | 41

was just leaning my head in hand. I am soooo smart, so cool. What a truly useful expenditure of class time. Kind of explains my grades that semester. Realizing I could be in a hypnotic state and still be totally conscious of everything going on around me was pretty exciting. Why not try it in another class? I tried hypnotizing myself during Hebrew Studies. Contrary to the psychology class, this teacher was interesting; a rabbi, and later an advisor of mine. As I went into my hypnotic state, I didnt have a particular goal such as arm raising; rather I was just doing it to do it. The results were amazing. When the class ended and I brought myself out, I remembered the entire lecture word for word, even though my suggestions were just about relaxing, nothing about memorizing, In fact, I still remembered it several years later. Good lecture! Another class I took was about practical counseling strategies. At about mid-semester, the teacher started talking about hypnosis. He started the topic with a group hypnosis session, kind of trial by fire, as a means to demonstrate hypnotic trance. I want you to get comfortable in your chairs and start to count backwards from 20, he said in a melodic, soothing voice. As you count backwards, each number brings you to a more relaxed state, deeper and deeper into a place of quietude. 20. Relaxation is gradually seeping into all your muscles, 191817 he continued counting down, 8, you are in a very relaxed, joyful state his smooth voice echoed in my ears. Right about then, just after the count of 8, I moved into such an incredible internal feeling of well being that I started to laugh loudly. It was great. Like a wave of joyous pleasure rippling through me. My whole body felt so relaxed, so content. I had never had this feeling before. No monster in the background, no fear, just peace, quietude, joy and relaxation. The teacher thought I had come out of the hypnotic state, and worriedly looked at me while giving me suggestions to put me back in. Given my previous experiences, I knew I was still deep within so I signaled him with my hand to keep proceeding. I was feeling so good when he brought everyone out, that I ignored his suggestions and stayed deep inside. As far as feeling goes, it was the best class of my undergraduate career.

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Having had this blissful experience, I became obsessed with reconnecting to it. It was like a drug. I started to fervently practice self-hypnosis every chance I got, searching for that high. It wasnt long before it became easy to achieve and the more I practiced, the faster and easier it became. As an added bonus, I noticed that my ability to create images in my minds eye was improving dramatically. This image clarity could only be positive in the Mind-OverMatter search. Chalk up another key: image clarity!

Exercise 6: Unaware Self-Hypnosis

Ever zone out in front of the television? Thats a form of hypnosis. Daydreaming is a form of hypnosis. How often during your day do you slip into a state where your stories are running in your head without you choosing which one you want to watch?

Creating Laser Sharp Focus

11

The peace I felt when using the relaxation images fueled my desire to be able to drop into a relaxed state super fast! As my images became stronger, I started noticing how real life situations, and the feelings experienced during them, were similar to feeling myself drop into a deep trance. A good example is when an elevator drops really fast; you get that sinking sensation in your stomach. Through trial and error, I found that imagining myself in that situation could reproduce that same dropping feeling. And as I felt that sensation it allowed me to go into a deep hypnotic state. The elevator image is great, but the best one I found is the image of a roller coaster ride. As a kid, I made trips to an amusement park in Illinois to ride the rollercoaster. This was one of those old fashioned rollercoasters made of wood, painted white and seeable for miles from the freeway. I remember that my first ride was the best. After waiting in line for awhile, I managed to squeeze up to the front seats before anyone else could get in. Some of the little kids obviously thought I was rude, but hey, this was for science. I sat down in the hard wooden seat and strapped myself in. The ride began with a climb

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toward the first hill and the subsequent 13-story plunge. As the cart moved, I could feel the chain underneath grab and hear the metal wheels resounding on the tracksclack-clack. When it reached the top (the highest drop is always first), I looked out to my side and could see the fairgrounds and freeway, and in the distance, Chicagos skyscrapers. Wow, the Sears Tower. It was a beautiful day and a spectacular viewfor a moment. As the chain released it made a loud click and the cart seemed to pause. I knew this was only illusion and that the wheels were still turning ever so slightly bringing my cart closer to impending doom. The cart crept forward, making small but distinct rumbling sounds on the uneven tracks. Looking forward, my blood went cold as panic set in. Less than 10 feet in front of me, the tracks disappeared. Notice I didnt say slopethey justdisappeared! Oh, No Could we stop please? came from some hidden place in my mind. I felt myself and my cart being moved forward, slowly, continually, toward this impending abyss, ever so slowly. The anticipation was burning a hole in my chest. Why on earth did I do this? Never again! Never again! What a fool I am! The cart continued with just enough speed to prevent me from climbing out and seemed to be taunting me in regards to my thoughts, You dont have time to climb out and wait for another bus! Ha Ha! I suspect it is the same thing felt by the fools who go over Niagara Falls just as the water grabs them and they realize they aint comin back! Suddenly, my cart reached the end of the flat area and started down the hill! Yet I was still moving forward, What the heck is going on? rumbled into my panic stricken awareness. Inside my minds eye was a big neon sign flashing, Oh Sh..! over and over. No other thoughts were possible. Buddhists meditate for years to obtain this one-thought focus and here I reached it just by being on this friendly little roller coaster with a 13 story drop. As the cart rounded the top, and the sudden descent began, I looked for tracks ahead and there werent any. The carts are not like a car where the front tires lead and the inside of the car

Creating Laser Sharp Focus | 45

follows. On these older rollercoasters, the cart sticks out beyond the front tires. This meant I was thrust straight out while the wheels were in fact, starting down. As the cart tipped to match the wheels, my mind went into hyper-drive. I noticed how each increment of time was an eternity; everything slowed down. Time became my worst enemy as I slowly, ever so slowly started to see I was falling, falling, falling with nothing to stop me. Picking up speed exponentially, I couldnt hear myself scream. Then as if in answer to my prayers, the tracks appeared way, way, way(bunch of ways)down below. Everyone behind me became terrified because my wail sounded hauntingly inhuman. Then my stomach decided to give its opinion. I was in New York while my stomach was still in Seattle! I could see tracks at the bottom now and they were coming toward me awfully fast as if they were my grandmother at the airport flinging her arms wide saying Come to me child! Im here to greet you! except I suspect the tracks had a more sinister motive than my grandmother. I reached the bottom without my stomach; then went to Denver just as my stomach arrived in New York. Thank heavens I hadnt eaten breakfast. The beauty of this memory, when used in hypnosis, goes beyond just the sinking feeling. There is fear involved in roller coaster rides. Thats part of the excitement! As I recalled images of my roller coaster experiences, the fear came right along and proved to be really important. Guided imagery and Mind-Over-Matter requires one-pointed focus; a mind that is quietno cross-talktotally focused on the image and feelings. Fear naturally creates that one-pointed focus. When fear kicks in, cross-talk stops and all thoughts are focused on the moment. Using fear to create focus, seeing images of those tracks falling awayfeeling the drop, coupled with suggestions to feel relaxedmade the perfect hypnosis cocktail. Rather than getting an upset stomach, the images become synonymous with relaxationthe depths of relaxation in an instant! When was the last time you rode a roller coaster? Feel the fear, feel the sinking!

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Exercise 7: Laser Focus

What experiences have you had that move you into a totally focused state? Are they all fear based? What about at work when you are so into the job you forget to take a break for lunch?

Testing the Limits of Guided Imagery

12

My success with self hypnosis made me hunger for more training. It was the early 1980s and I was in my third year of college. Although the university didnt offer anything remotely involved with guided imagery, a local counseling center did as part of their support group facilitator classes. The classes included group facilitation skills, group dynamics, conversation starting, creating trust and guided imagery. When they mentioned guided imagery, I felt like a duck in water. Unfortunately, my over-confident cross-talk got me into hot water! About half way through the 3-month training, during an evening session, Brian, the leader, introduced guided imagery. A short guy with a slightly asymmetrical face from a youth of Golden Glove boxing, Brian told us all to find a comfortable place to lie down on the floor and get into a relaxed position for the guided imagery exercise. My excitement grew as the cross-talk in my head saw glory: I have so much experience and know everything about this. What type imagery would he lead? A journey for treasure, healing some part of our bodies, talking to our younger selves, giving advice from one who has lived through our past trials and tribulations? said the cross-talk, coming on strong, heightening my anticipation. Brian turned out to be a good imagery leader, smooth in

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presentation, soft in voice, clear in the details, pulling in elements of touch, sight, sound and smell. Imagine yourself standing next to a lake of smooth, crystal clear water, he suggested. Aha! Probably a search for treasure; Ive seen this one before! I thought. In response to Brians direction, I imagined myself standing next to the lake. A boat floats magically across the water coming directly to you. When it arrives, step into it. Brians voiced flowed like honey: slowevensweet. Ha, I can do better than that. Thats so basic, my crosstalk pushed forward. And being in lemming mode, I didnt question the ever-present cross-talk gods. Oh well, one more lemming over the cliff! Brian intended us to float across the lake in our boat and find a secret on the opposite shore. Trying to do better than that, I decided to improvise. My ingenious addition was to walk under the water, checking out the lake floor on the way to the distant shore. No problem, easy as pie! I saw my feet going into the water, felt the temperature, told myself it was warm and soothing, and proceeded from there to search along the bottom of the lake for treasure. My intent was to discover hidden under-water secrets; secrets that would not normally be associated with being on land. Who needs a boat if you are leading a guided image, right? Its just a story, right? Wrong, not to my imagination it wasnt! As I walked along the lakes depths, I felt the sand sifting through my toes, watched friendly fish swim by, looked at beautiful banks of corral (I knowocean vs. fresh water) and started looking for a treasure chest made just for me. Everything went smoothly for about a minute and a half when suddenly I got a bolt of panic from inside. I cant breathe! gurgled from my depths. Gasping for air, I sat up. Brian looked at me quizzically, at which point I turned beet red. Caught red-handed, or rather, caught all wet. I neglected to make provisions for breathing, I muttered to myself with irony. I tried to explain to Brian, but my words came out garbled, like a hunched over, psychotic street person muttering to himself as he shuffles by on the sidewalk. Brian just shook his head and rolled his eyes. Holding my breath had

Testing the Limits of Guided Imagery | 49

been automatic because, after all, everyone knows humans cant breathe underwater. Cant breathe under water? Wait a minuteit was just an image, right? After we finished our training in guided imagery, Brian, continuing in his practical, step by step manner, each week had one of us lead the others in a guided imagery. When my week came around, he was sitting up front, kneading his oversized joint fingers. I imagined his joints were enlarged because of all the punching he had done while boxing. Brian gave me a sideways look, his lips pulled tight and eyes squinting. I could tell he was debating with himself whether he should let me proceed unfettered. He explained to us that his years of counseling private practice taught him people learn best by doing it themselves, making their own mistakes. Just as he said this, his eyes opened wide, looking directly into mine to emphasize, making their own mistakes. Little did he suspect! I didnt heed the warning. Rather than do a visualization with water or with traveling to some distant place, my desire to show off led me to guide a journey like no other. The group was sitting on chairs in a large circle around the outside edges of the room. Everyone get comfortable and imagine up above you are two spotlights. I began. These spotlights are magical. When the light touches you, it relaxes whatever part of your body it shines upon, I continued. So far so good, they all seemed to be getting relaxed. The lights are so magical that even if you wanted to hold onto your tension, the lights would still relax you, draw your tension out. My internal talk assured me, This one is going to be smooth as silk! Continuing I said, As you sit there relaxing, the two lights start to focus, one at your head and one at your feet. Feel the soft, warm glow of the lights as they gently, carefully, caress and draw the tension out of your body. Wham! Gary, an ex drug abuser, shoots bolt upright standing in front of his chair, making kind a squeaky noise with his breath! His eyes are wild! He looks around, breath heaving; realizes where he is and visiblyrelaxes! Brian, now sitting in the corner jumps up

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as well until he sees Gary settle down, then shakes his head at me rubbing his left hand in circles over his partially bald scalp. Oh No! I exclaimed deep inside, Not another imagination snafu! In this case, the outburst didnt disturb anyone else, so I motioned for him to be calm and hang out until the exercise was finished. Once the exercise was done and all the group members were back in the present I asked him what happened. He said it was going fine until the lights changed into two police helicopter searchlights and they were commanding him over a megaphone, Freeze! This is the police; put your hands on your head. You are surrounded. Never in my life would I have been able to predict that one! Once again imagination, mixed with belief, and now past experience, takes over current reality.

Exercise 8: Fooled by Imagination

Has your imagination ever fooled you so completely that you believed something was there that wasnt? Or maybe that a situation was happening, when it really wasnt? Are you paranoid? Delusional? Or maybe youve just never examined what your imagination spins as belief.

Practicing Hypnosis

13

Normally, after that kind of experience, I would have been more cautious, but being armed with just enough information to be dangerous, I decided I needed to prove I could do this without an imagination mishap. So I endeavored to find someone to hypnotize. Indeed, I did find someone. After a small sales pitch, I convinced my housemate to allow me to hypnotize him. Wow, a real subject to work with. Despite my own internal protests to be cautious, all I could see was that I couldnt pass this one up. My strategy was to count down from 20 to 1, then get him to raise his arm and if it worked, give him suggestions regarding health, study and eating habits. After the suggestions were done, Id count backwards to bring him back out. Pretty good plan if you ask me. To start, I had him lie down on the living room couch. Talking with the most confident, deep, dripping with relaxation, hypnotic voice possible, I started the count down. 20.10.1. This feels great Im a natural, popped into the back of my mind. I watched intently for the signals of relaxation, facial muscles relaxing and becoming symmetrical, slowed, even breathing. Each sign of deepening hypnotic trance came and went while I checked them off

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mentally, proceeding to the next. As the count reached number one, I started the arm raising suggestions, As you feel this amazing level of relaxation growing in you, you notice your left arm will start to feel very light and the deeper you go, the lighter it becomes. Sure enough, his arm did rise. A slight smile crept across my face. The real proof is in the arm! At this point, as my subject and I had agreed, I switched to making suggestions that his health would become better and better, his studying would be much more successful, less time to learn the same amount of material, and that he would lose the weight he wanted to lose. I thought I was pretty hot stuff until it came time for him to wake up. Reversing the order of the numbers, starting at 1 and counting up to 20, things went along like clockwork. It felt pretty good to successfully take him in, complete our intended business and bring him back out again. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he was still lying there. Time to get up now, I told him. His reply caught me off guard! In a sheepish voice told me, I cant move. What do you mean you cant move? I asked wondering if he was messing with me. At this point my pride in workmanship was having a bit of a struggle. My arms and legs arent responding! he replied. I could hear the panic growing in his voice and I wondered if it was proportional to the panic growing inside me! Oh, that. No problem. I calmly retorted, or at least tried to sound calm like a government official on TV claiming Everything is just fine. We strongly recommend you stay home and lock your doors. Please remain calm. My thoughts raced, Now what? What if I cant get him to come out of it? Whats the next step? Who do I call? 911? Hello officer, I have a problemahactually my friend has a problem, heer cant move. No, drugs and alcohol arent involved. Well, see, its like this, I wasahdoinghypnosis. No I havent had any training. Yes I realize it was a rather stupid thing to do.

Practicing Hypnosis | 53

Yes Im very sorry. No, I dont know who to call, thats why I called you Even in my imagination, that didnt go over very well. Probably better not to call 911. My mind racing, not realizing that a hypnotized person will just naturally fall asleep and awaken refreshed laterif left alone, I continued to maintain outward calm and decided to guide him back into a hypnotic trance saying, Ok, I want you to go back into that totally relaxed statereally feel the relaxation and peace with your whole being. As you relaxbecome awarethat this place of relaxation is yours to return to anytime, any day you wish no matter the circumstances. All you need to do is take this same imaginary journey and you will find yourself totally refreshedtotally relaxed and ready to face the day. Now that you know you can return here anytime you wish, I want you. And from there, I led him back up and out of the relaxed state. This time he came right out without a problem. By this time I had seen more incidents of imagination ruling the physical body without control than I cared to, how about ruling it with control? After this last hypnosis surprise, my over-confidence was a little more in check so I decided to focus back on self hypnosis and leave hypnotizing others to the professionals. But where could I go with self-hypnosis that would further my Mind-Over-Matter training? Id clearly seen how strong hypnosis can powerfully affect the body and had heard of people using it to stop smoking or lose weight, so why wasnt it used more for medical procedures? Picking up the phone, I called Maria. She worked in the counseling area so would probably know. Hey Larry, how are you? her voice rang like little glass bells resonating with enthusiasm. She laughed a pure crystalline laugh when I told her about my hypnosis escapades and then she explained how she uses self-hypnosis when she goes to the dentist. Maria told me how it was so easy for her to use images and auto suggestion to stop all feeling in her teeth. When in the dentists chair, she takes a few minutes to imagine her teeth without sensory ability and then the dentist can do whatever procedures are needed without any drugs. I almost dropped the phone when she told me

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that. Im such a chicken when it comes to dentists. Even the sound of a dentists drill gives me the willies right down to my bones. To have a cavity filled, I need at least three shots of Novocain and if there is serious work to be done, a couple Valium and someone to drive me home is in order. Even though Maria could hypnotize herself into dental bliss, there was no way I was going to try it. I needed something less painful to work on. I asked her if she knew of other situations where hypnosis was used in medical procedures. She told me there were many anecdotes but they were always given to her third person through the grapevine so she couldnt help me other than to tell me about her experience. She said I should try experimenting with it on my own medical needs. It didnt take long to find a well-defined test circumstance. One of my favorite activities is hiking, especially hikes that involve rock hopping. Rock hopping is a stepped-down version of rock climbing where the rocks are big enough and plentiful enough that one must scramble over them, yet equipment is not needed. My enjoyment wasnt so much gaining altitude or facing my fear of heights as it was finding new and winding paths over or around the rocks. On one particular hike, I felt like exploring so I took a route I hadnt tried before. There were a series of small caves leading one to another and from there, a shelf hung out over a 100-foot drop. This was cool! Crawling through caves, some tall enough to stand, some so small I needed to squeeze through, I found the climbing challenge invigorating. My dog was not happy about this route, probably because it was enclosed, or maybe he smelled an animal in there I wasnt aware of, but he came along begrudgingly. At one point the cave in which I was crawling opened to a larger cave, leading to the shelf. There was about a five-foot drop from the mouth of my crawling space to the floor of the larger cave. I jumped down and my ankles bore the brunt, my left one twisting beneath me. OUCH! Searing pain! Damn, Damn, Damn! I swore! I saw my dog backing away from the opening figuring he didnt want to get close to this raving mad man. Anger welled up in my throat. Shoot! this means I need to wait at least a half hour before I can hobble and probably several hours before I can walk normally. I calmed myself by remembering that

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this was a well-hiked trail. If my ankle were broken, it wouldnt be too long before someone came along. Anger changed to frustration as I realized I was stuck indefinitely. Im not a patient man and an injury is like a challenge to my self- control. But I knew I could change this into a useful experience by practicing my healing images. Focus I thought, Create an image to heal the injury. Ignoring the pain, I started seeing the ankle as having a dark murky black smoke inside it. Okay so far; now how am I going to remove the smoke? When I was little, my siblings and I had these humongous hypodermic syringes instead of squirt guns. Wed fill them up and run around like crazy people spraying each other in exciting squirt gun fights. There we go. The syringes were a perfect imageeven had the connotation of being a medical device. Imagining a huge hypodermic needle on the end of a large syringe, I stuck it into one side of my ankle. I could see the needle go in, but because my ankle was already in so much pain, I left out feeling the initial puncture. Using both imaginary hands, one on the syringe and one steadying the needle, I drew out the blackish smoke. As the smoke flowed mistily into the syringe, it became apparent from the growing void in my ankle that some form of healing energy was needed to replace the black mist. Another syringe appeared, this time filled with healing energy, and pierced the other side of my ankle. The emerald green healing energy (I read somewhere that green was the color of healing) silently, quickly, soothingly flowed into the void and soothed my ankle. It replaced all the dark smoky energy, and actually seemed to be thicker, pushing out the dark mist. I kept concentratingmoving the green energy inforcing the dark energy outuntil my ankle completely filled with healing mist, and none of the dark energy remained. It was amazing! All pain was gone! What a relief. Down time, about one and a half minutes, thats all. My impatient side could deal with this. The trail no longer ends so soon, I quipped to my dog as we walked out onto the shelf and peered down, mission accomplished! The more I hiked, the more opportunity I had to practice healing my ankles. The syringe image recipe rarely fails me. Healing is instantaneous, going from intense pain and inability to hold

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weight, to completely functioning, able to continue rock hopping and landing on the injured ankle without feeling any pain, all in less than a minute. Practice makes perfect.

Exercise 9: Self-Care
Think of something small you would like to change about yourself. Imagine what the desired result would look like. What imaginary tools could you dream up that could help to change from the current state to the desired state?

A Real Test of Mind-Over-Matter

14

All the practice afforded by beating up on/then healing my ankles served me well early that fall. After graduating in Spring with my bachelors degree, I moved to California to be near one sister and several friends, obtaining work as a counselor at a head injury recovery center. One of those friends offered me a temporary place supposedly for the fall and possibly winter. He was in the middle of a divorce and his wife had moved out. Late in August, on a Monday afternoon, he came to me bearing bad news; I needed to move out because of his divorce proceedings. He said we both needed to be out by the following Sunday, six days later. His announcement sent me into an emotional spin, Where was I going to go? Why did this have to happen now? Couldnt we work a deal? I pleaded. No. His attorney had informed him the house had been sold and the agreement was immediate vacancy. My mind kept spitting questions at me like a tennis ball pitching machine gone haywire! Where will I go? What about my pets? I cant do this right now; I just dont have the energy. A full apartment search sucks the life right out of me. I dragged myself to work as if my legs were chained to a slab of concrete,

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overwhelmed with the big question in my mind: Where my next home would be? University students were returning to the fall semester so competition was high. If it had been a month earlier, the rental situation wouldnt have been so bad. At the time, the rental market in Oakland was tight, plus, I had pets. Finding lodging with furry friends can be a real challenge. Landlords would rather just rule out pets than deal with all the extra deposits, possibilities of damage and in some circumstances, outdoor mess. As I said, the notice came down and I had nowhere to go. This was like being a little kid again, powerless to protect myself. When I was a kid in Wisconsin, I learned what it was to fear homelessness. There were winters where my father did not pay the gas bill and our heat was shut off. Luckily we had a fireplace so my mother made us all cuddle up in front of the fire, sleeping on the living room floor. All these fearful memories came tumbling back, spurred by the whirling and churning thoughts going through my mind. I consoled myself, Definitely not as bad a situation as some people experience in life. But it was enough to shake me up. How could I possibly find a place that quick? The prospects held a good three to four weeks of apartment visiting before I could find one where my application stood out amongst the 50 other people trying to get in. I bounced between depression and despair, neither a winning choice. My first impulse was to curl up in a ball and die. Eventually one thing became clear: Depression and despair hasnt changed anything. Im still here, same problem, now what? When you see the road dead ending, not an alternate route in sight, what do you do? Suddenly an idea or possibility comes to mind. Yes, thats it! Imagination kicks into high gear and comes to the rescue! I m not without possibilities. My biggest asset here is to use Mind-Over-Matter. Use the image tools Ive been working so hard to develop. But how do I apply it here? Should I create an image of me and the apartment manager shaking hands? Nah, too nebulous; remember, laser focus and image clarity. How about an image of me writing a rent check? Again, not clear enough. I had very specific needs for rental fee, apartment layout and location.

A Real Test of Mind-Over-Matter | 59

How about forming my requirements into an imaginary newspaper ad? Thats a good, clear image I can grab onto. Defining it this way was a good way to be sure I got the apartment I was looking for. After writing the pretend ad, I imagined seeing it in the paper, over and over, exactly as I had written it. I was so pressed for time, it felt like it had to happen; there was no choice, Failure is not an option, screamed in my head. The Oakland area offered several newspapers so I checked each of them daily. On Thursday afternoon, an ad showed up in the Montclarion. It was almost word for word the one I had imagined! Excitement took over and instead of calling, I just drove right over! An older, balding guy in coveralls with a friendly disposition was cleaning the place. He said the apartment belonged to his sister and they werent going to show it until Saturday, but since I had stopped by, he would show it to me anyway. He was such a laid back character that I felt like I was in a country-western movie back with John Wayne. We talked for quite a while and then he asked me to fill out an application, promising if all my references checked out, he would strongly suggest his sister rent it to me. She called me the next day to say it was mine. I moved in Saturday. I was so excited by my success with the apartment; I wanted to shout to the streets. Luckily, I had met a woman who could understand my excitement so I didnt need to disturb the neighbors.

Exercise 10: Concrete Images

Get an image of something youd like to see in your life. Get it really clear. See yourself having that item over and over. Remember to include the 5 senses in your experience of having that item.

Using Images for Healing

15

Kate worked at a medical facility in Berkeley where I worked as a counselor and weekend supervisor. She was the administrator and essentially ran the show. Her internal fire (read temper) was only upstaged by her glowing smile when she greeted someone. How are you doing? Kate would ask but the energy behind it was warm enough to light the state of New York on a cold winter night. Even her voice on her answering machine sounded so warm and friendly most people thought it was her and not a machine! Kate was wandering the path of self realization just as I was and had checked out many avenues of personal growth. Each time we got together, our discussions ranged from religion to spiritual beliefs to human awareness and over time, we became sounding boards for each other. Kate introduced me to the Kabala as well as to Buddhist meditation and belief in higher planes of existence. Eventually I told her about my theories on Mind-Over-Matter. Ive learned that laser sharp focus combined with a clear image can make things happen pretty quickly, I told her after describing my success with the apartment advertisement. I dont understand the need to make things happen, Kate said. The only thing that is really important is raising your

Using Images for Healing | 61

awareness. Everything else will just fall into place as it is meant to be. Ive never had the desire to control external circumstances. Usually the answers reveal themselves when the time is right. I didnt know how to respond to this. Practically my whole existence was focused on bringing things in, controlling my environment. Waiting for answers to reveal themselves was not something that would occur to meever. Maybe it was a male/female thing. Any way I looked at it, talking with Kate was always an adventure. Our different styles of approaching life permeated our very actions and created for me more learning on Mind-Over-Matter than I expected. One evening, while driving home from a workshop in the Oakland hills, we drove through an intersection and started down a hill. Suddenly a raccoon came running across traffic from the left in front of a car that was ahead of us. The experience was weird; time seemed to go into slow motion. The raccoon ran out, paused midway, then seemed to panic. He didnt know where to go. Ahead was the safety of the woods. To his right, bearing down on him, a fast moving car; to his left and a bit behind him, another car coming in the opposite direction. He darted forward trying desperately to reach safety. He was so close to the car on the right that the driver probably didnt even see him. The car didnt slow down and the poor guy was hit. He flew over to the right side of the road, landing hard on the gravel shoulder, rolling several times. As we drove past, he was convulsing wildly. As a kid, I had seen a bus hit a cat, throwing him off the street and up onto the sidewalk. The image of the cats painful, writhing convulsions is etched indelibly into my mind: First wildly flailing, movements gradually getting smaller as his life force draineduntil he was gone. I pulled the car over about 50 feet past where the raccoon lay and climbed out, expecting the worst. He wasnt moving so I guessed he was already dead. While in college, I volunteered at a wildlife rehabilitation center taking care of wild animals with just such injuries. Raccoons that live in cities are frequently injured, but if they receive help fast enough, some recover. This little guy was pretty messed up, some of his skin was torn off and his legs were not splayed correctly. If he wasnt dead, he

62 | The Student

would be shortly. To my surprise, suddenly I felt a wave of awareness wash over me and the hair on the back of my neck went all prickly. It was as if he reached out to me with his mind and I could communicate with him directly. We shared the same awareness and knew about each other. I told him in my thoughts. You are pretty messed up; maybe its time to go, let yourself die and your pain will go away. He responded with, I dont want to die, Im not ready. What could I say? Hell, who cares about say; what was I supposed to think? Connecting with a raccoon in my thoughtsmaybe I was losing a screw in all my Mind-Over-Matter hoopla? All I knew was that he didnt want to die, period. I walked back to the car and climbed in. Kate looked at me, Whats wrong? She clearly saw something had happened that wasnt just borne of feeling empathy and sadness for the raccoon. I softly said, Hey long pause with a deep sigh, Do you want to try an energy experiment? She wasnt sure what exactly I was proposing but slowly said, OK. Have you ever tried to heal anything before? I asked. That depends on what you mean by healing she replied with a tone that left a question hanging. Explaining to her what happened when I went to the raccoon, I said, I told the raccoon to go ahead and die but he doesnt want to. So..o..o, how about we try to heal him? Surprisingly, she was up for it. It never occurred to me we should think about making a plan of attack. Instead we each just did our own thing, imagining what we thought energy healing would look like, intentionally attempting to heal the raccoon in whatever way seemed appropriate. The process took about 15 minutes, each of us focusing our own way. As soon as we finished, the raccoon hopped up and ran into the woods. We sat there for about five minutes in stunned silence before tentatively starting to talk about it. Our discussion uncovered very different approaches to intention. She imagined flooding him with healing energy without a specific direction to it. I imagined myself going through his whole body, bone by bone, intending that each part of his body would be okay, correcting anything that seemed

Using Images for Healing | 63

out of place, but without pouring in healing energy. We couldnt tell which of the intention styles, general or focused, had worked or if our efforts had any effect at all.

Exercise 11: Healing Images

If you had to heal an animal using images, how would you do it? Would your image be of structure, bones, arms, legs? Or maybe of general healing? Would it be just of light flowing in or maybe a healing liquid?

Identifying True Desire

16

The one thing I did notice about our joint intention was that it worked in real time. My past intentions with imagery had always brought results after the image was complete. My success with intention seemed to be increasing on a bigger and bigger scale with Kates help. I guess I needed something to balance that success and keep me humble. Sure enough I found it: not winning the lottery. Many a person whimsically dreams of what they would do with the money if they won the lottery and I suspect many a Mind-OverMatter enthusiast has tried it. Exotic vacations on a far away beach, the sun kissing your skin, beautiful bodies in ethereal swimming suits abound, dancing in the moonlight, romance, massages, a cornucopia of pleasures for the senses. I took many an imaginary trip on lottery money. During this period I was back in school getting a graduate degree in engineering. Being back in school brought me face to face with eating macaroni and cheese dinners for more meals than I care to remember. The lack of money fueled my extravagant daydreams about the lottery, until reality would come knocking and bring me back, always with a twinge of regret. My engineering friends call the lottery a retirement package for the mathematically

Identifying True Desire | 65

impaired. But if I can truly practice Mind-Over-Matter, wouldnt it work here? This question led to several years of hunting the elusive lottery win. I tried images, affirmations, praying to God, just about anything short of selling my mother for extra ticketsall to no avail. I used my birthday numbers, numerology numbers, fortune cookie numbers and any other fated magical numbers I could come up with. I perused astrology books in the grocery store checkout line, always creating the image of that one big check showing up at my door. I was bummed that it didnt work. Somewhere in my fog of lottery fever, I started looking at what made successes with imagery and what made the failures. The first common thread for all of them was razor sharp focus. But I was focusing on winning the lotto. Why didnt it work? I put a lot of energy into making it happen and I knew it could work because some guy in Florida won it twice. I remember the paper saying that when asked how he thought he won the second time, he responded with, I was almost out of money; I had to. There was something in that I had to notion. It was active when I got the apartment and when I was fixing my ankles. Failure is not an option, rang in my thoughts. Okay, with a shift of perspective, I took a different tack. My approach shifted to an engineering standpoint: Whats missing from the Mind-Over-Matter experiments that dont work? As a good friend of mine who runs a manufacturing floor says, When you are building parts, dont look at the good ones to find out how to make them better. Go to your scrap bin and decipher how you made the scrap. As soon as you are clear on how you made the scrap, it will be easy to see how to make the good ones better. What was the difference between the lottery image and say, my apartment search? It must not be an unclear image because my images of the lotto check couldnt have been clearer. Maybe its motivation. In my apartment search I had fear of losing my home. How strong is my fear of lack of money? Maybe its the razor sharp focus. Maybe getting rich really isnt enough of a motivation for me to get razor sharp. But I clearly wanted the money and was willing to put a lot of energy into

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making the image. What if getting rich is just a symptom of something deeper or less defined? Well, something was driving me to try to win the lotto. So what on earth could be my true desire? Having a few extra millions sitting in my bank account didnt seem to be such a bad idea! I certainly enjoyed the images of a million dollar lifestyle! Did I need $1,000,000? Not really. Want it, yes, but not need. What was the underlying need I assumed money could fill? Once my thoughts shifted to this direction, things became much clearer. I was looking for security. I wanted enough money that I would be protected from car breakdowns, angry landlords, bill collectors and the constant awareness that I had to go to work the next day even if I wasnt happy in my job. My real desire was not for money, it was for security, that is, protection from lifes waves. Suddenly questions flooded my awareness. What if I felt secure, would I still need the money? Could security, my true desire, be strong enough to create laser focus? If I successfully brought in whatever was needed for security, would the compulsion to win the lotto go away? My excitement was starting to build! I needed to come up with an image that would represent security to me. If I could achieve a feeling of security, then maybe the money wouldnt matter because my true desire would be satisfied. W  as it possible to find security in ways other than cash? W  as the actual sum of one million dollars a magic security number or could I actually figure out a realistic number to shoot for? D  id the money need to come all at once in such a huge sum? C  ould I build up money slowly through savings and investments or a retirement plan, and if so, would that provide me with the security I was looking for? After ruminating about it, I decided money was important in my security image, but how much and how fast do I need to get it? Investing. I need to learn about investing, was my first thought. No, despite my excitement, creating the image was the first and most important step. What would the image look like? The crux of the matter finally came to the fore: How do I make

Identifying True Desire | 67

an image of security that involves money? If I defined an actual monthly amount and made an image of receiving that much in a check, would that create the security I desired? In a cavalier mood I decided, Why not try it out? I calculated a monthly amount needed to feel secure and started to make images of opening an envelope and finding a check for that amount. At first, there were no results. Then all of a sudden, opportunities for work (work that I hadnt even imagined doing) started to flood in. The connection wasnt clear to me until checks for all this work started to pour in. None of them were for the actual amount in my image but some were close! As long as I repeated the images over the period of about six months, extra income opportunities presented themselves. When I stopped creating the images, the extra opportunities stopped. Interestingly enough, just being able to create possibilities to make money provided me with some security. It took away some of the feeling that my life was at the mercy of the weather.

Exercise 12: True Desires

One of my true desires is security. Is security one of yours?

Searching For A Teacher

17

Although this discovery of true desire was exciting, somehow it highlighted how slow my Mind-Over-Matter progress had been and that annoyed me no end. It felt like the cool water of a promised, needed oasis was just out of reach and I was crawling in the sand, my hands and knees raw, holding onto hope somehow. I needed a teacher who knew Mind-Over-Matter, and I needed him or her right away. As if in answer to my desire, through a series of unusual events, I met Buck. Engineering graduate school wouldnt seem to be a place to learn about metaphysical concepts such as Mind-Over-Matter, but for me, it was the path to my teacher. A portion of my graduate school research involved an internship in the Midwest with an arm of the U.S. Navy. Upon arrival in Indianapolis, the difference between Midwest and West Coast people hit me in the face. It was the same experience Id had when moving from Wisconsin to California years before. Mid-westerners are slow to become friends but when they do, they become deep, lifelong friends. West Coast people tend to become friends fast but at a more superficial level.

Searching For A Teacher | 69

For me, returning to the Midwest was like putting on old comfortable, fuzzy slippers. At a gut level, I knew these people. Indianapolis was similar to many of the other cities Ive lived in. After getting settled I went looking for like-minded people. Indy has a trendy street called Broadripple, where all the coffee shops, stores and bars cater to the college community. It was fun to walk up and down the street. Everyone in the area was out walking, looking, talking, meeting. Midwest shops can only open their street front patios during the summer and this was a hot night in July so everyone was out; a perfect evening to enjoy the human melee. I looked for New Age bookstores and found one a half block off the main drag, right next to one of the big, trendy, night clubs. Hopefully someone working with Mind-Over-Matter could be found. What better place than a New Age bookstore to find them? I said to no one in particular. It was a mom and pop store, right down to the little bell jangling above its entry. On the shelves were the usual list of popular New Age books along with incense, gems for curing this and that, tarot cards and whatever else sells. Ive noticed in many cities that the New Age bookstores sell an assortment of supposedly spiritual items just to stay in business; books alone wont do it. Living in California gave me ample opportunity to see everything from hucksters and charlatans to people who really have something of benefit to offer, so this bookstore wasnt out of the ordinary. Sitting at a small card table amidst the books, smells and strange music was a woman with long black hair, hints of grey showing around her temples. Her dark, close set eyes that reminded me a little of a rodent looked directly at me; or rather, through me. Her purpose that evening was to offer some form of New Age readings. Walking up to her, I hesitantly asked where one could find the free publication listing all the new-age happenings in the area. My voice conveyed cautiousness because I didnt want to buy whatever she was selling; I just wanted information. She looked at me for a moment, clearly noticing I was protecting my wallet with all my might, and in a thick New York accent said, What!? Her What had the kind of tone and intensity to it that conveyed in one word a demand for a complete justification of your

70 | The Student

entire existence, right now, hurry up, you are wasting my time with your sloth. I repeated my request about the free publication. She fired back, You must be from L.A. Memories of my aunt, uncle and other Wisconsin natives responding to my decision to move to California popped up. Youre moving to the land of Fruits and Nuts was the favorite response. Others were more derogatory but all with similar or more suspicious intonations attached. I had this immense feeling I should apologize about living in California so I told the dark-haired New Yorker I did live in California but grew up in Wisconsin. That didnt seem to matter to her as she stated she had lived in Los Angeles for a while. With her next words, my youth in Wisconsin, and the spiritually conservative approach I was raised with, came rushing in. She said, Youve got to realize, youre in the Midwest. In Indianapolis they dont have a new age publication! Following another long look of assessment, she asked, What type of contacts are you looking for? So I ticked off some of the areas that interested me: Mind-Over-Matter, Kabala (also spelled Cabala depending on who you talk to), yoga, Buddhism. She pulled out a little pink slip of paper and started writing out names and contact information. Then she pointed to the first name and told me he had a shop about a block away and he could help me with the Kabala. Then she pointed to the second name, But this is the guy you really need to talk to. The person she was recommending was in Michigan. I asked her why on earth I would call someone in Michigan when I could go a block away and talk to this other guy. She kind of waved her hand as if my protestations were some form of bad perfume or strong cheese smell. Just call him, she urged. Hell answer all your questions. That was early on a Wednesday afternoon. That evening I went home and called him.

Part B

The Teacher

A True Teacher Appears!

18

Hello came the deep, resonant voice from the other end of the phone line. Hi, could I speak with Buck please? my voice belied hesitation and a little embarrassment. Here I was calling someone I didnt know to ask about Mind-Over-Matter. I felt like an idiot. This is Buck. What can I do for you? he said in a friendly but take charge tone. He probably thought I was a telemarketer. My name is Larry. I was given your contact information by a woman named Brin in Indianapolis, I managed to stammer out. Well Hello there! his voice changing from caution to beaming the sun itself into the handset, Hows Brin doing? That Well Hello There contained an amazing welcome tone to it. It was a tone like a long lost friend so happy to see me. It was the tone of someone who was really glad I called and really wanted to talk to me. I was so used to interacting with people who would just give a moments attention before moving on to something else, people too busy for their own lives let alone mine, that it took me by surprise. And a wonderful surprise at thata real contact. Even if the whole thing didnt pan out, it was wonderful to revisit that feeling of human connection if only for a moment.

74 | The Teacher

Shes doing good as far as I could tell (how was I supposed to know, we just met the one time!). I am calling because I am visiting Indianapolis for a while and was looking for people interested in the same things I am. After letting that sink in for a moment, cautiously I continued, My interests are varied but Brin was sure you were the person I needed to talk to. OhOkWell, can you give me a better idea of your interests? his voice told me he could tell I was being cautious. I have some interest in Kabala and Buddhism, but mostly I want to understand Mind-Over-Matter, I told him straight out. Mind-Over-MatterTelekinesissuch as moving items with your mind? he asked. No, not so much moving them around, I replied. Im interested in intending things and situations to come into existence or to happen. This explanation was coming out weird but I had never tried to explain the big picture before; all my efforts had been to explain little pieces. I wasnt really interested in pretending to be God. It was more of the desire to know how it worked. At that thought I noticed I was holding my breath. Dont worry, I think I know what youre saying, he said as if almost reading my mind. So are you interested in reawakening your soul? Buck asked. Im not sure what that means. Im hoping to understand how Mind-Over-Matter works. If that means reawakening the soul, I guess thats what Im looking for. Pausing for a breath, I tried to explain. Ive always been able to look at physical objects and situations and instantly see behind the curtain, see how they work from a physical perspective. But there is something behind the scenes, something that I am vaguely aware of but unable to pinpoint. It seems almostspiritual, I answered. Buck paused for a moment. I could hear him breathing as if considering what I had said. What kind of experiences have you had? he asked without judgment. After telling him about my Mind-Over-Matter quest, my childhood fascination, the apartment and the raccoon, I noticed he wasnt saying anything. So, what do you think? I asked wondering if he had already decided not to work with me.

A True Teacher Appears! | 75

Sounds like youre a mystic. Here he pauseda long pause. I could hear him release a breath, almost hear him deciding if he should take me on as an apprentice. There is a lot to discuss, and yes, I can address some of your questions. A mystic. I didnt even know what that was, but it did sound cool. As far as Mind-Over-Matter, the mind is powerful, but its the soul that has the real power. Most people are asleep at the wheel, letting their minds run the show without any sense of their soul. Once their soul wakes up, they look at themselves and are surprised at the amazing beings they are. When I was 28, he said matter-of-factly, his deep baritone voice resonating in my phone handset, I fell down an improperly built elevator shaft and totally shattered my spine. X-rays showed my lower vertebrae were completely disintegrated and the disks were all blown out. The Western doctors told me at best I would be in a wheel chair the rest of my life and that my immediate chances of survival were not good. He paused a second giving me a chance to realize the severity of the situation, then proceeded, So I healed my spine through images, intention and Prana Breath work. Ive been totally fine since that point, living a full life without any Western medical help. Is that the kind of thing you are looking for? I didnt know what to say. I didnt know what Prana Breath work was. But somehow I knew this guy had something special, an awareness and a way of expressing that awareness I had never seen before. My excitement started to grow; could I have found him? Was this the guy? Maybe, just maybe this guy was to be my teacher. He knew Mind-Over-Matter the way I wanted to know it. Yes! I said with a little too much enthusiasm, then reigning in my over excitement. That is what Im looking for. When can you visit? Buck asked. My excitement suddenly dampened. Id been around enough California new-age pontificators that my suspiciousness kicked in. I needed to know what we were talking in dollars. My reply came out hesitantly, I could, but before I do, Id like to get an idea of how much you charge for training sessions. Although I didnt want to be so blunt, I wasnt going to drive seven hours just to find out his prices were outrageous.

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I thought he would die from laughter. It was probably another minute before he collected himself and in a loving voice said, You cant sell God my friendI dont charge anything. The next day I took off work and drove to Michigan to meet him.

Well Hello There!

19

Driving along Interstate 69 toward Michigan my thoughts raced. This was crazy. Making a long drive like this, especially after talking to Buck only once, didnt fit my usual approach to life. But when he said, You cant sell God my friendI dont charge anything, the door to trust was flung wide open. Few of the spiritual teachers Id met gave away their lessons. When I recalled those that did, it was clear I learned more from them than from any paid-for workshop Id ever attended. Six or seven hours of drivinglots of time to ruminate over our phone conversation. Healing his back, how did he do it? How did Mind-Over-Matter really work? Can anyone do it? When it didnt work, what was missing and what was this Prana he spoke of? My speed on the highway increased and decreased, correlating with the frenzied ups and downs of my thoughts. I wanted so much to tell him all about what Id discovered and also have him show me where Id made mistakes and where to go from here. Graduate school in engineering had taught me to be extremely detailed. Hopefully he was willing to listen to my rant and my questions. Seven and a half hours later, I arrived at the address he had given me. Butterflies filled my stomach. It was strange that my

78 | The Teacher

excitement was so high. My usual cautiousness seemed to have melted away. A group of very tall trees formed an arch over the driveway, creating a tunnel leading into a hidden realm. It would lead to many visits to Michigan over an equal number of years. In each visit Buck and I would discuss everything and anything, eventually achieving a meeting of the minds. Sometimes Id repeat what I thought he was saying and hed elaborate on it. Sometimes I would present my own theories and he would correct and comment on them. So thoroughly did we delve to the depths of how things work that I can no longer tell which thoughts came from him and which were mine. Driving through the symbolic gateway, I swallowed hard as my view opened onto a large circular clearing embracing a barn straight ahead. The barn was at least two stories tall with an earthen ramp up to the right side sliding door. Several people were standing on the ramp talking. My heart was beating fast. In a hesitant voice I asked them if Buck was around. I was a little disappointed when they told me he would be back in a few minutes. Within moments Buck drove up in his old dark green pickup, the tires kicking up a bit of dust. As he climbed out, I was taken aback. Here stood a guy, 72 years old, although looking like he was in his mid 50s, wearing a white polyester shirt, blue jeans, cowboy hat, cowboy boots and smoking a cigar. The hair at his temples and throughout his close cropped beard and mustache was a mix of grey and black. He grabbed the drivers side door frame in his right hand and flung it closed with a thud. In total, he was not exactly the image I had of a spiritual being. Buck looked up at all of us waiting for him, took the cigar out of his mouth, and broke into a big smile. Hitching up his pants at the waist, he called out the now familiar, Well Hello There, just as warm-hearted and inviting in person as on the phone. After greeting each of the waiting people, he put out his hand to me and said, Hello, Im Buck. Hi. I called you yesterday; my name is Larry, I said as our hands met in the middle. His smile continued to radiate as he shook my hand with a strong grip, his steely blue eyes overflowing with what seemed to be love. The size of his hands was a testament

Well Hello There! | 79

to many years of directly working the world. My grandfather had hands like that, hands that dwarfed mine, hands strong from a lifetime of manual work such as farming or carpentry or field engineering. Bucks hands rivaled my carpenter grandfathers. Each of his fingers, as thick as my thumbs, made me feel like Id grown soft in my educated world. Seeing his hands brought up a nagging fear that he would be so focused on physical work, he might not know the mind aspect of Mind-Over-Matter as well as I hoped. If so, it wouldnt be the first time Id fooled myself into believing someone knew more than they actually did. Glad you could make it, come on in and set yourself down, he announced to all. Turning as a group we filed through the door like horses following each other to the watering trough. Inside the barn to the left was a full kitchen. Ahead was a series of rooms set up as guest rooms and to the right was a large meeting area. It reminded me of the room where my support group training had taken place. It exuded that same comfy ambiance, oversized pillows on the floor, soft chairs, and several big couches. Buck offered me tea, coffee, soda or milk. Tea please, I said still in the cautious mode of best behavior. Milk in that? he asked. Nope, just tea, no sugar, honey or other, I replied. I watched him make his tea and noticed he used a lot of sugar. How funnya spiritual teacher hooked on sugar. My chance to ask questions had finally arrived but my mind went blank. Eventually as I got to know other people in Bucks circle of friends, most of them relayed the same story. Upon meeting him, they couldnt remember what day it was if their life depended on it. He had a magical, larger than life kind of presence about him; an all inviting peacefulness. I could see him walking into a lions cage, where upon his entry; the big cat would roll over and say, scratch my belly. I sat down on a big cushion to the side of the barn, leaning up against a couch. Sitting on the floor had always been a favorite way to sit; somehow made me feel more secure. The other people grabbed various spots in a semicircle around a big, ratty, yellowish chairsurely a garage sale leftover. Buck gingerly picked his steps between people until he had maneuvered himself into the yellow

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chair. There he sat, with his tea steaming. Does anyone have any questions? There are always a lot of questions. No one offered up any questions so Buck leaned forward with his elbows on the chair arms, tea in hands centered in front of his chest, gazed at me offhandedly and said, Larry, youre here to learn about mind-over-matter arent you? I usually liked to scope out people before baring my soul to a group. By thrusting my desire out in the public eye, Buck put me on the spot. My hope had been to covertly be sure he actually knew the answers rather than have him just make long-winded guesses. Many people, charlatans and honest people alike, will puff up their pride if you ask them a question about a topic they know little about, pretend they are the all knowing deity in answering your question, and knee-jerk theories abound. I didnt want knee-jerk theories from someone who didnt really know. I could make stuff up just as easily as the next guy. I wanted someone who really knew. Oh well, I thought, hes called me on the carpet so I may as well lay my cards on the table. Tentatively I described many variations of the same theme: Boy tries to control the world with his mind. Boy has some success. But mostly great effort is thrown after foolishness. My frustration was immediately evident when I described my attempts at winning the lotto. It infuriated me that I couldnt see why the lotto wouldnt work when the apartment newspaper ad did. And on top of that, why didnt checks for the exact amounts I imagined come in? I thought I understood the relationship between true desires, motivation and laser sharp focus. Why was I still unsuccessful at hitting my targets exactly? How could I reconcile the disparity? It is easy to start interpreting things (such as money coming in) to causes that arent there. Yet at the same time, to look at all belief as useless story is to condemn the most important gift we have, the ability to create with our imaginations. There has to be something Im missing! I passionately croaked.

Identifying the Pieces of Mind-Over-Matter

20

Buck let me go on for awhile, the rest of the group being silent. Then suddenly, quietly, he began, If someone is looking for big ticket items, big life events, they might not just pop in even with images. It might take a good amount of time. He paused letting me take in what he said. Its kind of like pushing a large boulder up a hill. A certain amount of effort is needed to get the boulder up to the top. Whether you use your arms and legs, or a tractor or a backhoe, the same amount of effort is needed. With images, you still need to put in the effort to make something happen, its just that some of the effort is put in up front through intention and less through physical effort. He let that sit for a minute until I responded, So youre saying that to bring things in directly with images, to make something suddenly appear, it takes as much energy as if you did it over a longer period of time? Lets use that as a starting point, Buck acknowledged. He glanced around the group to be sure everyone was following. It seemed the people in the group were more than happy to hear this new information, or maybe this is what he talked about all the time; I didnt know.

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It makes sense. I said remembering the apartment and my experience that while I was actually making the images, my panic was so strong it provided all the energy required and this newspaper image turned out to be one of the most effort intensive things Id done to that point in my life. Buck continued, Getting that energy focused is the hard part. As he said this he emphasized the word focused, bringing his thumb and forefinger together, snapping his wrist as if putting a forceful dot on a written page. Somehow you have to be motivated, highly motivated, to create and sustain (what did you call it?) laser focus. After seeing me nod confirmation, he explained, I think most people drop their intention if the item doesnt show up in a short time. They need reinforcement or signs that their images are working. Looking down into his tea he swirled it in the cup. They need to see the boulder moving up the hill. If the signs dont show up, they give up too quickly and declare that images dont work, and the boulder rolls back down. Well, if the finished product is a long time away from the images, it is kind of hard to believe they are connected. I said impatiently. Somehow I felt I needed to defend myself for giving up too easily. Unfortunately, thats the case. Buck agreed. Feedback in a reasonable time is difficult to accomplish and without that feedback, belief becomes fragile. Its possible to build belief through repetition [however]; advertising uses that concept; heck, politicians use that concept, but thats not the only stumbling block. The big ticket items also take time because your life may not have the inroads for them to come to you. Buck chuckled and said, Its hard to roll a boulder if you have to push it up hill through a forest. If you havent cut the trees to make way for the boulder, if you dont have the inroads, they must be built first before the big items will come. Building the inroads is what takes the energy. What do you mean by inroads? I asked. Buck paused for a moment then asked, You told me the raccoon walked away right? And that the ad in the paper matched yours almost word for word, right? Yes. I said not sure where he was going.

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I saw a Buddhist monk heal a hole in a womans heart. The Western doctors brought the monk in to see if he could find what this womans illness was. The woman honored me by letting me sit in on the session; otherwise I wouldnt have been privy to this. The monk sat by her head and was able to tell her entire medical history just by projecting into her with his energy. Once he had completed going through her internally, he fixed her childhood heart malady by sealing the hole using intent. The Western doctors confirmed the hole had been there and that it was now healed. The reason it worked was that the monk had already built the inroads for healing, Buck said with intensity in his voice. He wanted me to understand this. It wouldnt have worked if the monk didnt already have an inroad. But what was the inroad? I asked wringing my hands still not understanding what he was telling me. Part of it was the monks training. Part of it was the womans willingness to let him work on her. Part of it was the monks prior experience. He had probably seen and been told in his training, that healing the human body is entirely possible through using ones mind or maybe ones soul. Sometimes anothers belief, if you trust them, can be an inroad or assist to you. Doctors test the placebo effect by passing out medication that is just sugar and people still get healed because they believe in the doctor. That belief is their inroad. Many years ago I led a woman on a guided image journey to help heal her husbands cancer. Buck adjusted his seat, settling into the chair, set his tea down on a table next to him and rolled up his sleeves, slowly, carefully, as he continued, I was teaching a hypnosis class up at a friends home. A woman minister was one of the students. During the course of the class she told me her husband was dying of cancer. The doctors told her he had two days to live. Pausing, Buck picked up his tea cup and sipped, and then relayed the rest of the story. She came to my class, hoping I could somehow help her. I asked her if I could take her into a guided meditation. Once she agreed, I had her imagine projecting herself into a huge hypodermic needle and shrinking it down to small enough where the contents could be injected into the blood stream. I told her to imagine

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being injected into the bloodstream from this hypodermic needle to see what and how she could helpgoing through the blood vessels, going through the arteries, and so on, through the glands, get down there to where she could see what the problem is. I told her shes got all kinds of tools, whatever she needs. Once there, she was to see whatever could be done, fix, heal, remove that cancer, whatever could be done. After the session was over, I asked her to talk about her experience. She said she had a real unique experience and was able to actually see the tumor removed. I told her to have the doctors reexamine her husband the next day at the hospital. After examining him again they could find absolutely no sign of cancer. He lived another five or seven years, absolutely no cancer. Her belief in my ability to lead a successful guided imagery was her inroad. Here he took a much needed sip of tea. All eyes were upon him; no one dared to breathe as he riveted us with the story. Inroads can come from many places, one of which is belief. His tone dropped as if this was the last word he would speak. Everyone sat there, completely quiet. He let us ponder for a bit, then said, Sometimes people arent ready to believe, but if they are open to the possibility that Mind-OverMatter can work, that can be an inroad. In the case of the raccoon or apartment, the possibility that it could work was your inroad. You believed or at least thought it could potentially work before you even started, or else it wouldnt have workedor you wouldnt have bothered. Western medicine typically teaches there is no way MindOver-Matter can work and backs it up with science. Western science is geared for analyzing things within a Western thought structure. Science cant prove Eastern healing success using experiments that follow a Western rule structure. The two dont mix. Western thinking. Western rule structure. This reminded me of that funny saying, Argue for your limitations and sure enough theyre yours. So, how did you get to believe healing could happen with intent? Buck asked pointedly. You used images for both the raccoon and apartment and for your ankles. Somewhere you picked up the inroad; the belief it was possible. Before I could comment, he tossed out an idea to emphasize what he was saying. If the

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inroad, BELIEF THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE, didnt exist for you before you started, you would have needed to create it. Your belief was the inroad. You expected it could work. Pausing for a moment to watch my reaction, he then left the question, Why did you expect it to work? hanging in the air. My thoughts raced. Why did I believe it could work? Had I seen anything like this as a child? No, but Id always believed in miracles. But that was sounquantifiable. Was there anything else that could be an example? Then it popped into my head. This expectation, this belief of possibility, was created for me by three people I knew personally who had beaten cancer with their intention. Years before I had met a woman in Oakland who had healed herself from metastasized breast cancer by watching Laurel and Hardy movies and laughing hysterically. The second person, an 85-year-old fellow who had prostate cancer at age 30 told me his doctor gave him six months to live. At the time medical science wasnt far enough along to treat it the way they do now. After selling everything off to be sure his wife and family were taken care of, he had a change of heart and decided he was going to beat the cancer, be optimistic and live. He even joined the optimists club and the cancer amazingly went away without medical help. Yet a third person I knew healed himself from throat cancer by using images. All these people had predisposed me, at some level, to believe the human mind could win over cancer; that the human mind could heal the body. That belief became my inroad. The raccoons healing didnt really surprise me; rather, it just reinforced my expectation, my belief, about human potential, while showing me I was on the right track with Mind-Over-Matter. But the raccoon seemed to heal instantly, and the apartment ad came up within a couple days of my making the image, I said. That would have taken a lot of energy if it was a boulder, but I didnt seem all that tired afterward. Kate and I joined forces to heal the raccoon, but I was alone on the ad. It was tiring to do the ad, but not the way youre describing. Remember though, the inroad was already in place for you and possibly for Kate, Buck responded. You already put in the effort needed to open that door. When you wrestled internally

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with your belief about those three people who healed themselves and each time you had success with your ankle, you were putting in effort. The inroad was created with smaller pieces of effort, built up over time, until it appeared that the boulder rolled up the hill in one quick shot. I looked at him and he had a smile just peeking around the corners of his mouth. Later, he told me how he was dubious at first, just as I was, but that experience and his teachers had gradually taught him how it works.

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Remember I told you about my falling down an elevator shaft? Buck asked in a much more serious tone. Apparently this was a common story because all the people present shook their heads in affirmation. Luckily, my belief in the souls ability to heal itself was already fully functional from experiences similar to seeing that Buddhist monk heal the womans heart. So I healed my spine. It took a full year of concentrated effort to rebuild the vertebrae, to get it back to where I could move autonomously, and several more years to get back to normal. For a period, I needed to crawl on my hands and knees at work. With a wry smile he added, certainly taught me humility. Shifting his voice to the previous, stronger tone, Buck added, After that, the doctors compared my before and after x-rays and were totally at a loss to explain it. Wowthatsa miracle. was all I could whisper. Buck pulled out a handkerchief and apologized for having to blow his nose. After putting his handkerchief away, he responded, Its not really a miracle. People confuse healing with miracles. Physically raising someone from the dead would be more along the lines of what you may be thinking. What I did was merely a state of consciousness; being aware of the capabilities of my creative

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soul and mind working together. It seems like a miracle because most people have no idea of the immensity and power of human consciousness. They see the world through their minds eye, and the mind is not consciousness. The mind is a tool for analysis to be used by the creative soul. The mind is for giving specific form to the souls creativity. What does that mean? I asked in a tone just shy of combativeness. A soul can dream up a fancy bridge to cross a river, but the mind does the calculations to be sure the bridge wont collapse when someone walks across. The mind is aimed at the finite; the soul at the infinite. Buck looked at me to see if I was following his train of thought. Western science agreed many years ago to step back from the soul and deal strictly in the realm of the mind, to separate the church from science. In doing that, they essentially declared consciousness to be a fairy tale. But the church had become a huge tyrant, I pointed out, remembering the teachings of my Catholic youth. Yes, thats true. And the separation was intended to limit the power of either side. The split started as an attempt to remedy an unacceptable situation. But, over time, science fell into the same trap religion fell into, declaring the only truth was through itself. Here he hesitated while he came up with an analogy so that his idea wouldnt be misconstrued. Its like someone standing in a huge field and putting up a white picket fence encircling themselves, then loudly declaring anything outside the fence to be imaginary. In reality, the fence is arbitrary. The location chosen for the fence is arbitrary. But to the people standing inside the fence, ideas and situations on the outside cant be true unless they meet certain criteria, the criteria of science. Who made the criteria? The people inside the fence. But science is built on experiments and repeatable observations that anyone can do, I pointed out. My point exactly, Buck emphasized. If you look at science and history, repeatable experiments are only one way to understand the worlda valuable way, but still, only one. Here he paused while letting that thought sink in. To the people inside the circle,

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the criteria make perfect sense, but in reality, the criteria cant account for the vast majority of our world. Yet in the case of science, Westerners firmly hold to it, claiming it will eventually expose all truth. Theyve stepped over the line that the church stepped over, claiming to be the only road to the truth. It is more subtle with science, with their claim there is no proof of the soul or of its abilities; using words like superstition instead of just honestly saying we dont know. Scientists will use the words not conclusive to hedge their bets but when you talk to them, theyve already decided and arent open to any other possibility. And they will use statistics to back themselves up. Buck was getting hot under the collar discussing this. He had seen all sides, the physical, intellectual and spiritual and had found flaws in the system. Amazingly, they dont see the fundamental flaw in statistics. It tries to predict the future based on the past, removing all possibility of the souls creative process by claiming that because the past went this way, the future will also go this way with a certain percent measured error. Tell that to all the inventors in our world. Tell them they have only a tiny margin of success. Tell them the learning process is not a success in itself and that producing an outcome in physical reality, usually money, is the only viable success. Its no wonder education in the U.S. has fallen on such hard times. Buck stopped for a minute to assess each of the people present. He seemed to be looking closely at each of them, checking to be sure they were still interested in the topic. I could see I wasnt the only person wanting his attention and explanations. Deep inside my hope was that he would focus exclusively on Mind-Over-Matter and not spend a lot of time on other topics. He reached out to a woman sitting in the chair to his right and patted her hand, How you doin? Gettin bored are ya? She assured him she wasnt in the least bit bored. Continuing with Mind-Over-Matter to my utter delight, he said, Emotion. Most scientists (and engineers for that matter) let their emotions rule them without even realizing it. Judgment, such as calling things superstition, comes from the emotions and a persons pride. Right, wrong, good, bad. Im better than, youre worse than. If scientists

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just put out an informational decision that would be one thing, but they dont. Did you ever attend a scientific conference or an engineering meeting? Those people go after each other like piranhas feeding on a carcass. The anger and aggressiveness they use has nothing to do with the science presented. Science is neutral, an experiment, a result. Adding hidden emotion into the mix is human error. Deciding on solutions to a problem with logicthats science. Labeling things right or wrong, labeling things as foolish or a waste of time, thats human emotion, and thats the same thing the church did. With a big sigh, he pressed forward with his peeling the layers of mind and emotion away. There are so many wonderful things in this life. Take art for instance. How does science explain art? How does science explain a persons love of art? Behaviorism? Hormones released into the brain that generate a feeling of pleasure? Nonsense. But if you explain it metaphorically or in some non-quantifiable way, your explanation is deemed fantasy. Buck seemed to be enjoying pointing out the limits of academic training and science, almost as if it was a game for him. Years later I would learn he was an excellent debater and loved a good debate. Maybe he was trying to goad me into debate about academics. Ive always been a poor debater and most of the time, I refuse. I hope I didnt disappoint him. Reflecting on what he had said, I saw how my schooling taught me how to conduct scientific experiments with the goal of perfecting manufacturing, making products better, saving resources through careful diligence, and never looking at how people throw their emotions around under the guise of fact; never realizing how subtle the emotions could be. Thinking back, an example came to mind of emotions being substituted for fact. I was at an academic conference for people involved with rehabilitating injured wild animals. One woman presented her research in tracking owls flight patterns. Her research team created a harness with a transmitter that would stay on the owl for one year, then disintegrate and fall off. The harness attached to the owl like a backpack with a small antenna running down its back, mixing with its tail feathers.

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An older lady, known as an authority on owls, almost exploded through the roof with a holier than though attitude, berating the presenter for not thinking about the antennas possible interference with the owls ability to mate. I remember thinking that the older lady probably made mistakes when she started out learning about owls, and those mistakes still haunt her. She was probably taking her own guilt out on this other woman. The other woman had by no means been haphazard in her design of the project or the harness, but had overlooked that detail. It may or may not have been important, but the older lady acted as if the world was coming to an end because of this one flaw. She was pretending her emotional outburst was scientifically justified. In this case, emotion was being substituted for scientific decision and observation. After fully recalling this ladys outburst, my mind returned to Buck as he was saying, The mind will never become conscious, only the creative soul can have consciousness Pausing because he could see I wasnt sure what he meant, he added as a means to explain consciousness, awareness of itself and its function in life and when he didnt see the recognition on my face, he said, each of us has an observer part of ourselves, a part that can observe the world and observe our own actions within the world. I nodded because I knew the observer inside myself. Seeing my recognition, Buck added, People think it is the mind that observes the world, but the mind is just an endless tape that repeats what it hears and is taught, no creativity, good for analyzing data, but not good for judging or creative inspiration. The soul provides the creativity. Unfortunately, people in the Western world dont look closely enough to make the separation; they dont realize the observer is not the bean counter part of themselves. Then to add emphasis, he slowly stated, Thinking is not awareness. I was starting to feel in a bit over my head. Buck must have seen this because he immediately moved the topic to connect back to inroads. The mind puts limits on creativity. This is necessary to put form to the creative impulse. But many people, through fear, anger, hurt or whatever, put more limits than are needed. Their thinking blocks their creativity or focuses it in a negative direction.

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By setting these limits, they reduce their inroads in areas where they dont need to be reduced. At this point, several of the others were getting restless, not sitting still or listening. Mind-Over-Matter as a topic seemed to be coming to an end. Buck asked them how they were doing and if they had questions of their own. Fielding all their questions, his demeanor was calm and peaceful. It was my turn to listen and listen I did. Buck was like a walking spiritual encyclopedia. Many years later, one of his close friends would tell me he had a Ph.D. in theological studies. Refreshingly, his approach was not just intellectual. His answers were from experience, not just book learning. He had walked the paths, explored the writings and rituals, discovered the nuances in each religion and had a global perspective on all of them. That really surprised me because he was a steam system engineer by trade and it didnt occur to me that someone who worked with his hands could also be highly educated. In my family, education was undertaken to get out of working with your hands. My father was ashamed of his dad being a carpenter and a gas station owner, so my father put himself through college to become a lawyer. It was a paradox that working with my hands gives me immense pleasure and at the same time, an incredible angst, as it goes against all my family conditioning. Still further, my very drive for understanding Mind-OverMatter was almost a caricature of the whole situation: wanting to control the world without using my hands to do it. We stayed up until 2:30 in the morning with the other peoples questions still going strong. After an underlying message explaining meditation, Buck implored the group to learn to meditate, enticing us with the possibility of the whole world opening to us. Meditation, he taught us, raises your consciousness, brings peace to your life and helps you overcome whatever hurdles you may encounter, internally and externally. The long drive from Indy to Michigan finally caught up with me along with information overload. Buck could see I was really tired but encouraged me to stay awake. It was no use; the next thing I knew it was morning.

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Sometime around 8 a.m., he stopped by the barn to see if I was up and about. I had already showered and was ready for breakfast. We hopped in his truck and headed to town. So how ya doing? he asked. Im great. I responded. Great was not the half of it. I was so elated at finding someone who could teach me in a way that made sense. Jubilation, excitement and heightened anticipation would be more appropriate descriptions of what I felt. So how long were you an engineer? I asked. Buck peered sideways at me as he drove. He probably didnt get much chance to talk about his history given most people came to him for answers about their own lives, just as I had. Want a tour of the area before going for food? he asked. Sure, as long as well have time later to talk about Mind-OverMatter, I told him, mindful of my limited visiting time. Lots of time, he reassured me. We drove into town and he showed me the company he retired from, pointed to the windows that contained his old office and talked about his job there. He had been a design and field engineer

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for a machining company that specialized in steam delivery systems. We talked about the power of steam, superheating, energy loss and other engineering concepts. I learned a lot about power systems of the past and how, presently, steam is being used for electricity generating as well as paper processing. After the work tour we drove past two houses he had built himself and finally, the house he grew up in. Buck was charismatic in his story telling, regaling me with stories of his youth, everything from showing me the tree he fell out of at four years old, to breaking his nose while boxing and using his hands to straighten it, to the many types of work he had done as he worked his way through school: farmer, gas station attendant, aircraft mechanic. We talked of his motorcycle riding adventures and of his experiences moving to New Mexico in the dead of winter, sleeping around a campfire in the freezing temperatures all the while building a cabin by hand including digging the foundation through frozen earth. This guy had adventures like those you read about in books. Im sure there was a little embellishmentmaybe a lotbut I thoroughly enjoyed listening to a Master Story Teller. It was mid-day when we finished the tour and took a break for lunch. Buck drove to a little caf situated between two lakes. Half the building was taken by the caf, the other half, a fishing tackle store. It was a true backwoods caf with fish and animal heads and bodies framed on all the walls. There were even some pretty amazing looking fishing lures, the kind that are made to catch the fisherman in the store, not the fish in the water. After we ordered our food, he suddenly picked up our Mind-Over-Matter discussion, We were talking about inroads, right? Buck asked with raised eyebrows. Um-Hum I managed to grunt not wanting to talk with my mouth full. You said you had tried getting the lottery but realized it was not on your must have list so shifted to intending money in by making images of checks? he said looking for confiration. All morning I was thinking about how to apply what he had told me. When I get checks in the mail, they come from areas I have already cultivated in some form or another. Sometimes the

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money is unexpected, sometimes it is expected. I received a check for $4000.00 for some work I had done. The work was the inroad. Interestingly enough, the work showed up several days after I did my imagination exercises. This avenue of work didnt exist for me before that point; the work was a surprise. Another time a check came for $2.50 as a royalty for an independent film I acted in (no Emmys here); the inroad was the film. I didnt expect money from this film and hadnt heard anything about it for more than a year when the check showed up several days after my image exercises. And again, another inroad was a past bank account I had closed. A check for 1- cent interest from the banks mistake came six months after the fact, but right after I did the image for checks flowing in. A penny, how silly; but I guess the channels you have available to you are the channels the money will arrive through. Answering his question, I said, Yes, as long as I repeated the images, money came in; when I stopped, it stopped. Yet a friend who was also experimenting with Mind-Over-Matter received a check for $8000.00 from a class action lawsuit. She was expecting maybe $30 or $40, not $8000.00. She wouldnt have gotten it if she hadnt signed up for the lawsuit; Im assuming the lawsuit was the inroad. If so, why is it that my inroads dont bring big bucks? And further, why is it I need to keep repeating my image work so often to attract checks. Why cant I do it once and have checks rolling in through whatever inroads I have? I kind of dumped on him with all this. Buck listened patiently with just the trace of a smile, Each time you make an image, you adjust your internal frequency. Continuing in a matter of fact tone, Thats the first thing. The second thing is those adjustments happen many, many times in any given day, even in any given minute. Frequencyyou mean like radio wave frequency? I knew some of the theory behind radio broadcasting but wasnt seeing how it fit here. Your thoughts and moods are like a tuning fork. They vibrate at a certain frequency. Situations in your environment will match that frequency, resonate and respond to you. If you vibrate at the frequency of being the most successful person on the planet, those things in your environment that resonate with that frequency will respond. His look was direct and intense. He wanted me to see this clearly.

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You make it sound similar to a radio tuning to a specific radio station, I pointed out more to check that I was hearing him right than to set up an argument. Continuing with his same intense look, he added, Yes, just like with a radio, all the frequencies are available at all times, but the radio only picks up the one it is tuned to. Then he sat back a little and watched me with sharp eyes, looking for my reaction. When he was sure I had returned from my internal discussion about this, he said, This next bit is very important. At any moment in your day, ALL possibilities exist around you at all times, but you only see the ones that match your current vibration. If you want to change your life, change your vibration. After assessing my pensive reaction, Buck tried another tack, Have you ever gone to a party when you were in a really good mood, or felt really good about yourself and everyone wanted to talk to you. Maybe an inordinate number of women wanted your attention? Sure. I smiled at the memories. Ok, have you ever gone to a party when you felt like absolute crap and no one wanted to talk to you? You wanted to meet a girl but they all treated you as if you had leprosy? That unfortunately, is more the rule than the exception, I admitted. Was anything really different about you besides your mood? Did you suddenly change your style of dress to make yourself look terrible? he smirked. No, Im not sure what it was. They just werent interested in me those evenings and weekends. This conversation had a slightly depressing bent to it. Ill bet it was your mood, Buck said as if he had just scored game point. When you are in a bad or an unsociable mood, people tend to not want to be around. Good mood, lots of people; bad mood, nada, zip, zero. Theres even an old song: something about when youre smiling the whole world smiles with you. Like a light bulb going on, I laughed at the memory that came to mind. I described an experience I had on a bus one time in Oakland. When I was working as an electrician in construction, I

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had just finished a long day. My clothes were a bit dirty but I had my tools with me identifying me as a working man. The day had gone poorly and I was in a sour mood. I didnt want to deal with or interact with people at all, yet here I was, about to climb on a crowded bus. I looked at Buck to see that he was getting the image. He nodded so I continued. When I stepped on, I moved through the crowd toward the middle of the bus. As I got there, a young couple left their seats to get off. I slid into the window seat and put my tools on my lap, then proceeded to stare out the window. I was thinking, I hope nobody sits next to me; I might bite their head off. After a few minutes and several stops later, no one had sat down next to me. This was a full bus. I checked my armpits but I didnt stink. I wasnt covering the extra seat with my tools, so what else could it be? Then I looked at my unconscious mood to see what I was putting out. Literally, I was projecting serious consequences to anyone who sat down. There were even men who I would have been fearful of, standing in the isle, not wanting to sit down. My mood was so bad, everyone picked up on it and kept their distance. Jokingly I followed up with, Sometimes I wish I could tie into that mood more often, like in business meetings that arent going my way! Thats a good example, Buck concurred, ignoring my humorous thread. That sounds so simple but if we really do put out vibration, why cant we measure it? I didnt like explanations that said, Here is a black box; believe whats in the black box. I wanted clarification. Well, we can measure some of it, Buck responded. We can measure brain waves, and theres a company in Southern California that developed an electronic device to use vibration for healing. Ive never seen one, but the principle is sound. Help a bodys immune system by setting up a frequency opposite to the disease frequency. Its essentially similar to canceling out sound by putting out an opposite but equal frequency; the opposite sine waves cancel each other. But if we cant measure our frequencies directly, how can we prove this true? I asked.

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Buck chuckled, This is one of those inside versus outside the picket fence questions isnt it? He could see I was moving toward overload and that my doubts were coming up to defend me. Rather than do a three day debate about measurement in the world of science, lets just leave it as a concept that can only be measured through direct experience. This is not something I can prove to you any more than you have already proven it through your own experiences. Debating wont uncover some hidden truth. I do have one question for you though, to help get you over your feelings of being overwhelmed. After a long pause he asked, Have you ever made images of things you want and gotten them with clear reliability? Now that he mentioned it, I had. Originally, I started imagining parking spaces, I told him. Whenever I wanted a parking space, Id imagine it before leaving my present location. When I arrived at my destination the parking space just appeared. Its gotten to the point I have pretty reliable results. And how exactly do you do that? Buck asked. This one I had down pretty good so could explain it easily. Its like this. I think of the parking space I want and make an image of the space and surrounding street. Then I imagine myself driving up as the parking space opens. As soon as it is open, I drive into it and park. Once in the space, I imagine turning the truck off, feeling myself get out, shutting the door, leaning on the frame and feeling this tremendous sense of relief that I found the space. Then I purposely let go of the image, send it up to the sky. Its pretty cool. I almost always get the spaces I want. I learned this from self-hypnosis practice. I said with a little bit of my pride showing. After saying this, it suddenly occurred to me that my mood was much better. I wasnt feeling overwhelmed anymore. Buck had successfully led me out of my doubt state by letting me see my own experience; how Id already answered my questions through lifes experience. For the first time I could see my doubt state as a mood, a knee jerk response, part of my cross-talk, not a method for seeking truth or embodying truth in itself. This reminded me of the owl woman yelling in anger at the other researcher. Her reaction was more of a knee jerk angry state of mind or mood, presented as a

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valid scientific analysis. My challenge to Buck about proving frequencies was a knee jerk response of doubt. I had my own experiences counter to that doubt, yet fell into doubt anyway. Once again, Buck saw my mind zipping in the background so waited for me to think things through. He wasnt finished assessing my understanding of the parking space process so asked me to highlight the important parts. I said in a more serious tone, Ive thought a lot about this pausing to prepare my thoughts. Clarity of image, laser focus, a strong desire, clearly imagining how the image feels and once the image and feeling is completeletting it go. I knew these steps from my years of self-hypnosis practice, learning to control my trance state with images and feelings, like with the roller coaster. Anything Im missing? Belief and Expectation, he quickly replied. But lets talk about the strong feelings you mentioned. Tell me about how you use feelings. Well, the image is just a story in my mind if I dont give it emotional energy, I said repeatedly looking at him to see if his reaction agreed or disagreed. He didnt give me an ounce of response other than focused, listening attention. He really wanted to know just how thoroughly I understood my experiences. Its the emotional energy that makes it become real to my beliefs; for parking spaces, the emotion is relief. How so relief? he asked while heartily munching his fries. I get that feeling of a joyous release of tension when a task is completerelief, almost euphoria, a thankfulness, or gratefulness that the parking space showed up. In my image Ive learned to recreate that feeling. Are you aware you are using the image and feeling as your inroad? Bucks eyebrows raised as he continued the very direct line of questioning. Well yeah, now that you mention it, I suppose it is an inroad. Buck nodded and picked up with his thought. Everything has a vibration, including the image and the feeling. And in this case, you are using the image and feeling as your inroad. You set up a vibration inside yourself that matches that of the desired parking space.

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Your ability to get the parking spaces tells me youve memorized the vibration, that is, strengthened the inroad of that image well enough to repeat it at will, and thus make yourself resonate with it. The more you practiced creating that feeling, the easier it became to get spaces. That reminds me of one of my trips to India. Later I would find Buck had made a number of trips to India and had many amazing experiences and stories to tell. A friend had an experience that showed just how controllable the physical world is from a higher level of consciousness, he began the story, all the while pausing to eat small bites of food. Buck and his friend were walking through one of the streets and an Indian man came to his friend and said, For five dollars I can tell you a special truth. His friend refused. All right, the man said, Just come with me and Ill tell you anyway. They followed the man. He led them into a small hut on in a cluttered alley off the main street. When they sat down the man went into a meditative state for a few moments, then looked directly at Bucks friend and said, When you were young, you had a very special toy. Your brother, in an act of anger, took that toy and hid it. You never saw that toy again and that has been a wound youve carried. Then, the man reached into his shirt and pulled out the toy and gave it to Bucks friend. They talked with the man and it turned out he was a monk, growing up in some form of monastery, studying meditation from childhood on. By the time Buck finished his story we had finished our meal, left the caf and started walking along the shore of one of the lakes. The sky was clear, the sun bright and the humidity so thick it could be spooned into a bowl and served for dinner. Our pace was slow and leisurely, too hot to be hurrying anywhere. Buck didnt seem to notice the heat or humidity (probably used to it). So if the image and feeling is needed to succeed at Mind-OverMatter, how could that monk get an image of a toy the guy lost many years before in childhood? I asked, not able to make the connection. As one raises ones consciousness, it would be like looking at an onion. Layers upon layers of awareness are always present but most people tend to stay within the outer one or two. This monk

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had peeled back many of his own layers of awareness and because he had peeled back his own, he could see into my friends layers. Its an amazing thing, as you peel back your own, you also become aware of others layers. Once connected with the frequency in my friends emotional scar, the monk could match that frequency and bring in the object. Buck said. Really? I asked flabbergasted. Well, rather than speculate, lets first look at how the process works; after that, we can speculate. Buck paused to see if I could hold my picket fence disbelief at bay long enough to consider the whole picture. When I took a deep breath and nodded, he continued, What is a skill you have that took a while to learn and build? he asked. I can repair cars, I said, although I really dont like to do it anymore and the engines have become so complex I dont even know if I could still do it; but I was good at it in high school. Ok, so to repair a car, did you pick up a compression tester, walk up to the car and know what to do? Again he was asking questions. I wished he would get on with it. Humidity tends to make me short-tempered, and in this case, it was doing a good job. Of course not, I said with a slight edge of impatience in my voice. I had to learn little bits at a time, what this tool was for, how that part on the car worked. I had to buy those Do it yourself car repair books and read the sections I needed before starting to work on the car. Well, Mind-Over-Matter and meditation for that matter are somewhat similar to that. You start out learning that a wrench is made to turn a bolt. That allows you to learn how to change an alternator. Then you learn about a torque wrench and how to use it. Then tool after tool until you know about repairing your engine. Once you have learned how to fix the parts, they start to appear more as a system, working together, and suddenly you find yourself thinking not in terms of replacing an oil filter, but in terms of how the system functions. Then when something goes wrong, you can run through the system in your mind to identify the problem before you even start to work on the actual car. Here he took a needed breath. The engine starts to run rough. Before you pull

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out a wrench, you start thinking about all the things that could cause the engine to run rough. So youre saying, as someone learns how to make one item come in, they eventually start to see how the system works and then can make other items come in using the same avenues. I jumped in to show I could understand. I felt like a little kid raising my hand in class but not getting called on, so I finally burst out with the answer! Yes, thats what Im saying. Buck confirmed, obviously tickled at my outburst. But wait, how could the vibrations of a parking space bring in someones lost toy? My enthusiasm faded quite quickly. Good question. It doesnt. Buck was watching me as we walked along the shoreline. Your feeling about parking spaces is just one specific feeling youve connected to parking spaces. Youve learned how to use a basic wrench. The monk had seen above that level to where he didnt need to get one specific feeling. It was like he was working with the raw material of feeling, the creative potential of humanity, like an artist designing a painting, so he could start with pure creative energy and move it into whatever form he decided to give it. Again Buck wanted to be sure I understood, so he stopped walking and faced me. Its just like a mechanic working on a car. He doesnt have to physically go through every single nut and bolt each time he works on another car. He knows the principles of how the car functions and can apply his creative potential and minds analysis to identify the most likely problems. The monk, being able to see where the man was emotionally hurt, could use his creative energy to find a solution to the mans pain. The solution came in the form of bringing in an object. Someone who practices Mind-Over-Matter needs to focus on seeing the structure behind the situation, seeing the how the parking space comes in, not just see the one routine that brings in parking spaces. Bringing in parking spaces is a nice trick, but is that all you want to do with your potential? Bucks tone suggested he felt it is very important for people to focus on their higher levels of potential and not be so impressed with basic success that they stop searching.

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If I practice enough to see how it works, I may be able to bring in other things like the monk? I said as more of a query than a statement of fact. The monk was doing something way beyond what were talking about because he could see at a much higher level due to his training. But yes, you need to aim your learning at the structure behind Mind-Over-Matter rather than just doing party tricks. he replied. That was perfect. I was learning the how. One asset a monks training provides is concentration. If you can hold an image of what you desire, clearly, unmoving, in absolute focus for five minutes, it must come into being. Holding the image is not an easy task; try it sometime. See if you can keep it stable for more than 30 seconds. I did try it at a later time and even though I had done all this self-hypnosis work and image creation practice, and could make an image of inventions in my mind, rotating them 360 degrees with my imagination, I couldnt go 30 seconds without manipulating the image or moving it in some manner. If I had to keep it absolutely still and clear, I would get lost into looking at one aspect or another and from there end up rotating it or interacting with the image in some form. Amazingly, five minutes of holding an image perfectly still is not an easy task. At this point we turned and headed back to the truck. Buck had some family activities to attend to later in the afternoon. As we drove, I was silent, thinking on what we had discussed. Each time one of my questions was answered, a whole new arena seemed to be peeking around the corner. Monks healing hearts, producing lost toys, Buck healing his spine; I always dreamed these things were possibilities for saints, but here was an engineer/farmer/mechanic who was saying these things are reachable by anyone who will go looking. When we arrived at the barn, Buck told me to grab my stuff, You can stay in the guest room at our house this evening. As I ran into the barn, it started to rain, a hard Midwest rain. Watching thunderstorms was always a favorite activity of mine. When the storms would blow in off Lake Michigan, my girlfriend and I would run down to the public boathouse on Milwaukees beach to snuggle and watch the storms brewing. As theyd come

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across the lake, the show was spectacular with lightning shooting everywhere into the water, sometimes hail, sometimes fog, all enjoyable to watch. Milwaukees harbor had several foghorns which would start sounding the long, OUUUUUUU foghorns make. This storm was turning out to be a gusher. After grabbing my stuff I ran to my truck, but stopped when Buck waved me to go with him in his truck. Running to his truck as if somehow I could avoid getting soaked, I tossed my pack onto the floor and climbed back in. Really coming down, Buck commented.

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23

The road to his house was a single twisted lane. It was raining so hard frogs were coming out from under the brush onto the road, probably to dance in the rain. Buck did his best to avoid them but it was almost like trying to drive through an obstacle course designed for a rat. We arrived at his driveway ten minutes later. His house was set a ways back in the woods. As if to explain his bumpy dirt driveway, he told me the past winter had been pretty hard and it was time to get the tractor out and grade the road again. Trees surrounded the road except for a few places where houses stood. Buck pointed to the left side at a house partially hidden by forest, Thats my oldest sons house, and on the right a bit further along, My youngest daughter and her family are in that one. We discussed his family of six kids and a lot of grandchildren. Some were entrepreneurs, some factory workers, some collegeeducated white collar types. Did your spiritual pursuits rub off on them? I asked, not knowing if he would mind my probing. Nope, each person comes into this world with a purpose and my path is not theirs, he replied. As we drove up to the front of his house at the end of the dirt road, Bucks wife Janice came out of the front door to greet us.

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Much later I would find out that so many people came to him for spiritual guidance that Janice was relaxed and used to guests, never knowing who would show up. She was just as warm and friendly as he, inviting me in out of the rain while also reminding him of the family dinner they were going to. Nestled into the woods, the house had a great retreat setting. Buck and Janice had built this house just as they had the ones he showed me earlier. It was a wood sided, multilevel setup with the middle floor living, dining room and kitchen shifted off to the left while to the right a basement apartment sat underneath the upstairs bedrooms and family room. Janice asked me to take off my wet shoes in the entryway. Buck came in and put his boots away, exchanging them for the open back slippers like my dad used to wear. After we were all dry and comfy, Janice and I made tea and chatted for a moment while Buck went upstairs. When he came back down, he asked me to join him in the living room. They had several big couches and a recliner. Buck chose the recliner and offered me a seat on one of the couches. Janice was an artist, spending her retirement time between painting, landscaping and various other activities. Her beautiful paintings hung at various places around the room. Along one long wall were large windows overlooking a small lake. What a place to live! I could see myself enjoying a home in the woods, the pace much slower than what I was currently involved in. From the moment I set foot inside, a strong feeling of peace and tranquility enveloped me, almost like a flowing wave washing over. Their house was ever so comfortable, just right, like little bears porridge. In the living room, the carpets pile was deep. So deep that footprints were preserved for a few minutes after someone passed. My stocking feet were oh-so happy to be sinking into the soft carpet. So, do you have any more questions? I forget where we were when we stopped, Buck said to get the ball rolling while handing me a cup of tea. I almost laughed as the thought of asking if I should lie down for my therapy session struck me. Remembering some of the things he said earlier that hadnt been fully explained, I asked, You said I was missing belief and expectation in my formula for intending things. Then you said the

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monk had an advantage with concentration because of his formal training. What do you mean by belief and expectation? I think I concentrate pretty well, so how is what the monk does different than my laser sharp focus? Buck tilted his recliner back a bit, lifting his feet to about a 45-degree angle. The recliner creaked as though in protest. Sipping his tea before proceeding, I could tell he was formulating his thoughts. In the momentary pause, I noticed that even though it was hot outside, his house must have been really well insulated because it was cool, perhaps even a little too cool. I wrapped my hands fully around my teacup to warm my fingers. When he was ready, he started rather quietly, Belief is a choice. A person decides what they will accept and what they will deny as truth. Buck seemed to be staring off at some far away place, picking and choosing his thoughts so as to have clarity. Some people spend their whole lives letting others dictate their truth, their belief. Others refuse to believe any information from anyone else, even when that information could be useful to them. Mind-Over-Matter requires belief. Buck shifted from his faraway look to a stern gaze directly at me. As he finished, he pulled his glasses out of his pocket and started to use them as if they were a conductors wand, as if he needed something in his hand to emphasize what he was about to say. You need to believe, first, that Mind -Over-Matter is itself possible; then, that whatever you are trying to do is possible as well. Someone who doesnt believe in Mind-Over-Matter at all shouldnt bother trying to make it work. It wont. Many people try to get huge items their first shot without ever examining their beliefs. They hear about intending things into their lives and right away go for Olympic gold. So what happens? They dont get Olympic gold, not because their desire is not strong enough, but because they dont believe the whole thing in the first place. They do it as a test and when the test fails, they give up, reinforcing their belief that MindOver-Matter is nonsense. The old cycle of self-fulfilling prophesy. As he said this he sat forward and his recliner creaked under him. Others believe Mind-Over-Matter is possible, yet also believe

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that what they want is impossible or out of their personal reach. Setting his cup down on the lamp stand next to him, Buck sat back and turned his glasses over and over between his hands in his lap. Many people dont realize their beliefs can be manipulated if they arent paying attention. The sadness in his voice was really strong. I could tell he really was concerned about this issue. Advertisers know they can create belief in those people who dont want to make a choice for themselves; politicians know this too. Buck sighed, fidgeted a bit, then continued, If people arent willing to put in the effort to consciously choose, their beliefs can be manipulated. Its been proven that repetition will eventually create belief. Advertisers use this all the time with TV commercials. Buck leaned forward again to emphasize his point. How much of the crap you buy do you really need and how much is just because somewhere you have an advertisers jingle rattling around in your head? He was starting to get a bit hot under the collar; clearly he did not like people abusing the principles of Mind-Over-Matter. If people hear things often enough, they will start to believe they are true. All a crooked politician needs to do is keep loudly yelling how innocent they are and sooner or later the viewing public will believe, contrary to all physical evidence. Its a sad flaw in human nature but thats just the way it is. A light went on in my head. With a sudden burst of enthusiasm, I blurted out, Thats why they keep telling you to practice positive thinking, even if life is crap. My excitement emulated someone who had just discovered a big secret. Eventually you will believe it is positive and change your vibration, and attract more positive circumstances. I had heard of this applied to money as well as a positive attitude. Repeat a mantra or chant that says: I am worthy of money. I attract money in everything I doetc. and eventually you will attract money. Yes, thats true, but only repeating words may not infuse the emotions into the process so it will take a lot longer. Buck responded casually. In terms of intending things into the world, he continued, belief is important because without it, you cant set up your vibrations to resonate with what you are looking for. Just saying

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I believe isnt enough. You really need to believe whatever you are wanting to have happen is possible. Many people dont believe they deserve wealth so they can make all the images they want but nothing comes to them. Its because they vibrate at the frequency that matches poverty or tight finances or penny pinching. To attract wealth, they need to believe wealth comes to them without a problem, including that they deserve it, or at least dont not deserve it. Here he paused to let his words sink in. After a moment, You yourself already went through this exact process of examining and then creating your belief. Each time one of those three people who healed themselves from cancer told you about it, you needed to evaluate whether you believed them, and consequently, whether you believed Mind-Over-Matter was possible. By the time you encountered the ankle injury problems, you had already decided it could work; now it was just a matter of making it work. Your success strengthened your inroad (your belief in Mind-Over-Matter) to the point you were subsequently able to bring in the apartment. Buck rocked back in his creaking recliner. Wow, he really summarized that with elegance, I thought. He hit it so succinctly, my head started to spin. I needed to pull myself together and focus so I wouldnt miss whatever came next. This was definitely what Id been hoping to learn, the nuts and bolts of intending things to occur. For most people, when they hit that I have no choice state of being, suddenly, out of necessity, the chance for a new door to open, even if just a little bit, is much greater. The door opens to the belief that what you want might just happen. Dire necessity is one way to create the possibility, to strengthen the belief anything is possible; another slower method is, as Ive said, through repetition. Buck got up and started walking toward the upstairs hallway. As he walked, he kept talking, Repetition may be slower but it doesnt require dire circumstances, which can be a good thing! Unfortunately with repetition, you first have to suspend judgment long enough to let the repetition work. What do you mean, suspend judgment long enough? I asked. Hold on a second, lets take a break, I heard as he disappeared up the stairs.

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When he returned, he had changed clothes in preparation for the family dinner. Not wanting to waste a minute, I repeated my question even though he might have been signaling an end to the afternoons discussion. You said, suspend judgment long enough; what does that mean? Letting go of a small groan as he hitched his pants up at the knees and sat back down in the recliner, he responded, If someone doesnt believe repetition will work, it wont. They need to at least decide it is possible for repetition to work long enough to build belief, even if they think the possibility is slim. If they are willing to admit it is possible and hold that admission, then they may be able to develop belief. Most people use repetition for a short time, expecting some miraculous outcome, and then quickly give up because they dont see a response. They never get to belief. The bigger the desire, the more repetition is needed to build belief and match the frequency. Swinging my legs up onto the couch, I pondered what he was saying. It seemed to me there had to be a way to prove to a total skeptic that Mind-Over-Matter was even just the littlest bit possible without endless repetition. How can a non-believer create belief without repetition? Is this possible? I asked, then added, Even myself, I know I have what they call poverty consciousness, the belief that money is hard to come by. How could I get past my poverty consciousness and get money to flow? I hated to admit I thought about having big bucks in front of this spiritual guy, but it has consumed me for a good part of my life even if the true goal is security, so why try to hide it? You ask a Catch-22 question, he replied. You dont believe the steps required to create belief will work, yet you want to know how to make it work anyway. Have your cake and eat it too without any effort. Buck clearly thought this was funny and I could just imagine him commenting that Id stepped back inside the white picket fence of science. Then he surprised me. Id start by proving to myself Mind-Over-Matter can work, then go for flowing money, he said matter-of-factly. Proving Mind-Over-Matter can work? My question seemed to

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amuse him. I felt as though we had done all this talking and now he asked me to connect a dot I had missed. How could you prove to yourself Mind-Over-Matter can work? he asked back. What would be proof to you? What could you imagine that would be possible in a short time, with minimal repetition, given current inroads, that would symbolize success to you? After thinking about this for a minute I said, How about imagining one of those Susan B. Anthony dollar coins they made in the 1980s and 90s sitting on the side of the road? Okay, first why that particular item and second, tell me the details of how you would do it. he bounced the ball back into my court. Its something unusual, yet possible; unusual enough that if it happened right after I did the image work, considering Ive never seen one of these on the street, it would be pretty clear where it came from, I stated confidently. If its common place, my crosstalk will shred any belief Ive started to build. Say I just imagined a penny. I know finding a penny happens normally because it has, many times. My crosstalk would have a field day telling me how that isnt proof because Id seen it before without Mind-OverMatter; so Id want something that didnt happen to me before, but was possible. Pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them as if to protect myself, I said, My inroad could be the Post Office parking lot. The Post Office stamp machines give those dollars as change so it may be the only place Id ever see one. Since losing a dollar is annoying but wont break the bank for most people, a dollar coin is more feasible in a short time than some large ticket item would be. Ok, good as far as Im concerned; now how would you go about getting it? he asked. Probably the same way I get parking spaces, I explained, Id imagine it in a specific setting such as in the Post Office parking lot with a stick or leaf or car tire next to it to give it context. Id focus really hard on itcoin, concrete, stickall in the same picture, making the image as clear as I could. Then Id need to add the feeling of success or relief, like in my parking space image. What about repetition? he asked.

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I dont know, I thought we were trying to do this without repetition, I said with a bit of a frustration. Yes its possible without repetition, but you need to hit that emotional relief feeling right on the head, no wavering. Since youve practiced it for parking spaces, you could probably do it for the coin, but what about someone who hasnt done it before? How would they create the emotional vibration if they had never done it? It may be that just a little bit of repetitionpracticeis necessary, Buck said as his voice became really intense. And here is the key: Even if you dont believe the repetitions work, if you can really make yourself feel the emotional shift each time you repeat the image, it will change your vibration. Here he paused, once again assessing my expression. His next sentence was like an arrow to the center of the issue. This works with minimal repetition because the item you are imagining is so easily obtained. The inroad is easy to create, so your connection to the emotion does not need to be extremely strong. Of course, the stronger you connect to the emotion, the quicker your vibration will change and voila, the quicker your results. It seemed that the most important thing was to vibrate at the frequency of whatever you wanted to bring in and that belief came in second. I inferred this to him. His eyes and cheeks momentarily squinted as if in intense thought, then relaxed as he slowly stated, There is another important aspect to repetition and belief that you need to take into account. More? Wow. Ok, give it to me. I took a breath and made eye contact, nodding my head for him to continue. Repetition leads to belief and, eventually, to expectation. Two shifts: Repeat until you feel the shift from disbelief to belief. Then continue repeating until belief transforms Buck left this hanging almost like a teaser news story where the announcer says a couple words, then News at Eleven. Alright, youve got me, what does belief transform into? I asked, thinking it was expectation but fearing he was baiting me as in a sneaky game. With a triumphant smile Buck said, Belief will shift into the next piece of the puzzle: expectation. His tone implied all kinds of

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magic. His whole series of questions and ideas had been leading me to this point without my knowing it. The number of repetitions needed first depends on how strong your disbelief is, then how long it takes to make belief, and finally how long it takes belief to become expectation. But I was still puzzled. Expectation. What do you mean by that? Is it different from just expecting something to happen? I didnt see how it was such an important item. Expectation is an exercise in Personal Will. Here Buck paused as if contemplating how to present this new idea. To expect something of someone is a form of demand. Demanding can be conscious or unconscious. A child throwing a fit is an unconscious demand made out of emotion with no thought. An adult standing up for their rights when dealing with an unfair situationthat can be a conscious demand for action. At this Buck paused again, assessing my reaction in a long, direct look. He was clearly worried that I wouldnt understand. Once satisfied I was following him, he continued. When you practice Mind-Over-Matter, you need to make a demand on your creative imagination, but the demand needs to be conscious. With a long inhale followed by an equally long exhale, Buck leaned forward. I knew this was to be an important point. Think about it. If images and feelings can create a change of vibration within you, and your mind is constantly thinking this, that and the other, while your emotions are constantly reacting to each of those thoughts, arent you actually creating vibrations all the time? And if so, arent you constantly creating your world in an unconscious way? Thinking positive makes perfect sense. If all you do is think negatively, of course you are going to run into more and more negative situations because that is what matches your vibration; and remember, all possibilities surround you at all times. Vibrate negativeSee negativeits that simple. With a hearty laugh, he threw himself back in the chair, threw his hands high up in the air as if in resignation and tossed out, I keep telling people, Want a better life? Change your consciousness, but they dont believe me. Here he stopped and sighed. I could tell that even though he thought it was humorously ironic that people

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dont realize how they create their reality, it still bothered him to the point of making him a little sad. Anyway, Buck said letting go of the emotion of the moment, going back to expectation, the demand is more like a request, an urgent request rather than a command, but it has the strength of a command behind it: your personal will. You lost me on that one, I admitted. If you wanted a close friend to do a favor for you, a favor that absolutely needed to be done, would you start commanding that friend like you would a dog? SitLie downStay. No, you wouldnt. You would request your friends assistance but it would have the force of a strong request or a demand without being an out and out direct order. The friend, if they were any friend at all, would immediately see this was important to you and would comply to the best of their ability just because of your friendship bond. At this Buck let out a long slow whistle followed by a quick click sound from the side of his mouth as if to tell a horse, giddy-up, click, click. A big smile came to his face and he let out a kind of hummpf type snort while his eyes again had that sense of irony. The words, MindOver-Matter, are themselves a misnomer, he said. They imply command, conquering, domination over the environment. It would be more appropriately called Mind and Matter Cooperating Together With Strong Intent, but that doesnt sound as good does it? I still dont get what you mean by personal will and how that figures into expectation, I admitted very boldly, given how animated he was in describing this whole part of the process. Do you understand what I mean by expectation? he asked. It sounds like you are not commanding the situation to come into being; rather, you are forcefully requesting it, I said trying to hit the target. But that forceful request has a sort of urgency to it, a quality of there is no other option, I added when he didnt right away approve my synopsis. Close enough. Youll experience the feeling of expectation when you have done enough repetition of an image to create belief. He seemed to want to move on to the next topic. Now, about personal will Here he paused, getting up to refill his tea. More? he signaled to the cup in my hand.

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Im good. I said as I waved my hand to gently decline. As he walked to the kitchen, he loudly called back, Deciding with determination, holding the decision stable through the waves of lifethats personal will. When he reached the stove with the teapot, he turned back to me and yelled from the kitchen, A good example is an athlete practicing their skill everyday in preparation for the big competition. They must push past the doubts, through the soreness, through the frustration, always keeping the final goal in mind. Winston Churchill said Never, Never, Never Give Up. Personal will is your internal force or determination that keeps you going no matter the outside circumstances. I can see where this goes, I said, Ive experienced that process working with deadlines. The job is due the next day but there is more than one days worth of work so Ive chosen to stay overnight and keep focusing on getting the job done for the deadline. Exactly. Buck smiled at me over the counter separating kitchen from dining room. At this point the teapot was starting to squeal so he turned off the stove and filled his cup. A surprising amount of steam rose up around his arm as the water hissed into his cup. Pulling out the sugar jar he added a requisite heap of sugar. Once the tinkling of spoon on glass finished, his relaxed footfalls could be heard crossing the room to his recliner. Again he made that kind of Ahhh sound as he sat, one of the few sounds that cross all human lips at some point or other, that belies stiff joints. So follow me on this, he continued. Imagine a person who has created an image, coupled with emotion enough times to grow belief and then expectation. The results dont show up immediately in their current situation. How can they keep that belief, that expectation going without giving up? Remember, they arent going to get instant reinforcement for their images. The repetitions create the belief and the expectation, I ventured, not sure what he was getting at. They should just continue the repetitions. But what will lead them to do that? What will keep them repeating the images even when they arent getting noticeable results, even when they are getting discouraged? Buck asked. Their personal will. I said, more as a question than a statement.

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Right, just the same way you pushed yourself to work all night, they can push themselves to keep repeating the images, keep believing, keep expecting. There is a catch however he was attempting to be mysterious. He wanted me to take the bait so I did. Whats the catch? I said trying to not sound uppity. If their desire isnt strong enough, personal will is very hard to generate. Using the state of being there is no other choice is the easiest way to access personal will. Will doesnt come from the mind. It is a decision from higher up in your consciousness. That higher part of you needs to really feel this item must be done, or it wont be interested in working that hard. From all Id seen of Buck, working hard at directing his Personal Will wasnt a problem for him. So how can one generate Personal Will? I had to ask. One way is to set goals. Set goals that are important to you. If you set goals that you dont care about, you wont put any Will toward achieving them. Many people try to set goals based on others values. People want the big car, the mansion, the fame and fortune, but most of the time, those goals are not really theirs. Those goals are sold to them through repetition from advertising or through their friends. You talked before about true desire. Id say that is another way of approaching this. If you find your true desires, you will have all the Will you need to go after them. You cant get a stronger goal than your most important desires. At that moment, Janice entered the room and mentioned it was about time they get ready to go. Nodding, he held up his cup, signaling to her he was almost done. How do you create Will if you dont have a true desire? I asked him. I hadnt been able to do this myself, so this would be interesting. Well, he said, as he seemed to be taking larger, quick sips of his tea, this gets pretty involved. How about we talk about it tomorrow? That was fine for me. I was feeling a bit overloaded and wanted to write down what we had talked about so I wouldnt forget it. You can stay downstairs in the basement apartment or sleep on the couch here, he offered. I decided to sleep on the thick

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living room carpet because I preferred hard beds like futons and the couches were definitely too soft; the bed I saw downstairs looked soft as well. Buck got up, disappeared down the hall only to reemerge with the requisite bedding. Laying it on the couch he said he would leave the front door unlocked for me so I could go to town to get dinner. I left my truck at the barn, I said rather sheepishly. Oh thats right; well swing by there and drop you off on the way, he replied. The rest of the evening was uneventful; going to a restaurant for dinner, returning to Bucks house and setting up my bedding on the living room floor. Buck and Janice were late to return, late enough I was already asleep and didnt hear them come in. Seven oclock a.m. rolled around and Buck was there, waking me up to get a start on my last day of questions. I got up and showered, ready for the day with slightly droopy eyes. As soon as I was fully functional, we hopped in his truck and headed for the barn. Buck seemed amused it took me so long to get going. He had been up since five, patiently biding his time until I emerged.

Generating Will and Letting Go

24

Once at the barn we did a walk around the grounds to see if there was any storm damage; finding none we headed inside. Buck put the teakettle on. He seemed to really like tea; maybe he was from England. What time do you need to clear out? he asked. It didnt have the edge of being tired of my questions so I assumed he was just assessing our discussion and what was important. If I leave mid-afternoon, that would be fine, I replied. Well, weve got a meditation group meeting here at 2 p.m. Youre welcome to stay and join us. His reason for asking my departure time became clear. Whats the meditation group about? I said cautiously. I had been to Buddhist meditation groups and other new-age meditation groups in California and had found some of them useful, some teaching nonsense. If this was just a new-age group, I wouldnt stay. The drive home was long and my need for people hawking their latest wares was very low. If it would be a retreat type thing where Buck would present ideas, that may be worth staying for. I already knew he held a lot of information I wanted to hear.

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The Hindu word for it is Satsang, loosely interpreted as a gathering to hear the truth. We practice Shabd Yoga or the meditation of sound and light. Several people will be presenting writings by the great Masters from this meditation tradition, he explained. It didnt seem to be too new-age directed, so I decided to go with the flow and see what it was about. We didnt finish our discussion of Mind-Over-Matter yet, Buck pointed out. This made me happy. I was really worried he would get sidetracked if people started showing up for the meditation meeting. Buck took the teapot off the stove and poured us each a cup. Yeah, you didnt answer my question about generating Personal Will if you dont have a true desire, I said. This question had me thinking all night with no real answer. Generating the Will isnt that hard, but you need to play sort of a trick on yourself, using a stronger desire. he smiled as if about to give me a very funny, yet secret trick. Say your goal is to be famous, but fame isnt one of your true desires. It would be hard to generate Will directly with the idea of fame, but if you can create a link to some other desire of yours, that can be used to generate the necessary Will. Oh, I get this! burst out of me. When I lived in Reno, each day I biked into the mountains. Some of those mountain roads are really steep, taking a lot of effort to climb them. When I would get tired, the way my Will could be hooked was to pretend the mountain intended to force me to give up. My pride would be tweaked if I didnt make it, so as my legs burned, Id yell at the mountain telling it how it couldnt beat me; that Id win by making it to the top. Doing that created a kind of internal drive, a fire spurring me on until I made it to the top. Buck thought my use of my own pride was immensely funny but confirmed that was exactly what he was talking about. The burst of energy you spoke of, that is personal Will in action. The trick is to sustain it even when you arent getting any feedback such as progress up the hill. But, I said getting more excited, I can sustain it. All I do is pay attention to what I am doing at that exact moment: pushing

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my right leg down, pushing my left leg down, breathing deeply, whatever I am doing at that moment; not looking up at the hill, not looking anywhere but at the road right in front of me. And that keeps the momentum of my Will alive. There you go! Buck echoed. After a minute of silence, Buck told me there was one issue we hadnt talked about, although I had mentioned it when I first described getting parking spaces. This peaked my interest. I had mentioned it but didnt have a clue as to what it was. What had I talked about that we hadnt covered? He let me stew with this question for a few moments as he sipped his tea. After I had squirmed long enough, he said, Letting go. Oh yeah, but why is that important? I always just did it as sort of an ending to my images. I would just put the image in a bubble and send it up into the sky until it couldnt be seen anymore, kind of symbolically giving it to a higher power. If I didnt, Id be perpetually stuck holding the image, and thats exhausting. After its out of sight, its time to intentionally force myself to focus on something else, anything else, just to break the attachment. Sometimes this refocusing really takes a lot of effort, especially if the image is dear to me. Buck looked at me like a loving grandfather who has just taught the young kid to use a hammer and is watching as the kid misses the nail, hitting his thumb instead. Letting go is important and not only did you discover it without knowing, but you also instinctually know why, without realizing you know. He was having fun with this. Continuing he said, Say you were cooking a turkey. If you constantly open the oven to check the temperature, you let out the heat, so the turkey will take a lot longer to cook, or maybe not cook at all. It was a good analogy, easy for me to understand. Does that mean you are letting the energy out? I asked. Well, not necessarily. Its more like changing the vibration of what you imagined. Thats the real problem. Sipping a bit, he continued, When you make your image, the feeling can be strong at just the right vibration to resonate with your desire. If you open the oven, you change that vibration.

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Looking at me again he said, If you continually check the progress of the image, by thinking about it, wondering if it will work, hashing it over and over in your mind, you inject other vibrations into it. Pausing, he watched my reaction, then continued, Vibrations of worry, vibrations based on your (what did you call it?) crosstalk, will become part of your image. If your crosstalk is negative or doubtful, you will be putting doubt into the vibration, and that doubt will become what resonates for you. For most people, the vibration of doubt or negativity is stronger than any other; theyve practiced it a whole bunch. He smiled when he said this because of the irony in it. Remember, your vibration follows your thoughts all day long, so if you constantly focus on the image, you will be injecting vibrations other than that of success or in the case of your parking spaces, relief. To further elaborate and be sure I got what he was saying, Buck continued, Essentially, someone who is checking every five minutes changes their vibration state from the demand, It is working, It is working, to the question, Is it working? Is it working? That implies a desire for control, very tight control, which further implies you dont believe its possible without your constant intervention. Step back from it and you will see this attempt at control really means you doubtuntil the intent proves itself. His look was very intense as he continued, By doing this, you change your vibration from success to non-success without even realizing it. Again he paused and took a deep breath, If you expect that it cant be successful to start, it wont be successful. It shows a lack of belief, a lack of trust in yourself, to control so very, very closely. This goes back to that idea we talked about before: a strong request. You are not commanding the situation to come into being, you are forcefully requesting. I hadnt thought about control in such depth. Yes, I could see how trying to control is a result of not believing or not trusting things to go well. Thats what my security issue was about. I wanted control through money. I didnt trust myself to handle the waves of life, so I wanted some form of control; and somewhere I had

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learned that money could give me that. Maybe it could and maybe it couldnt. After watching my expression go through all kinds of gyrations while I thought about what he had said, Buck dangled another carrot in front of me: Beyond that, letting go has another benefit. What might that be? I replied, a bit of overload creeping into my voice. When you rode your bike into the mountains, did you just ride all the way up and down the first time, or did you need to build your muscles over time? he asked. Over time of course, I said almost flippantly. Continuing with loving patience, even in light of my smartaleck response, Buck stated, I dont know anyone who can skip the learning steps. Some are better, some are worse, but they all start at some point and whats the old saying? Practice makes perfect. This time I caught on to what he was saying right away and I was eager to explain. When I was in undergrad school, we did an experiment on human learning and tested how people learn. The premise was that someone who learned a skill in small steps, over a longer period of time, had more success at the skill than someone who did a marathon of learning where they focused for an intense shorter period of time on the same task. Its called spaced vs. massed learning. Give a person time between each learning step, spaced learning, and they will master the skill better than if they try to learn it all in one long session, massed learning. So, letting go is like spaced learning. Pausing to examine what he was telling me, a light suddenly went on. So if a person makes the image, feels the feeling and lets it go, they learn how to create that object better than if they keep pushing at it, repeatedly adjusting the image, adjusting the feeling. Buck emitted a satisfied snort. I had finally hit the nail on the head. He was happy. There you go and almost as an afterthought, he added, When you force your focus onto something else, you are allowing the request to continue with the correct vibration. It was getting close to time for the meditation group to begin and Buck asked me if I had any more Mind-Over-Matter questions.

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I did not. He had given me exactly what I needed. Now it was time to practice all these skills so that it wouldnt be a one-weekend flash in the pan. Buck excused himself and went off to one of the rooms to prepare for the group meeting. I hung out on one of the couches as people arrived. When it was about time for the group meeting to start, Buck reappeared ready to go. Eventually everyone settled down and Buck announced the agenda. I was waiting to see if Buck was going to talk, and luckily he spoke first. He explained that as a precursor to this type of meditation, it is helpful to understand a bit about the internal workings of man from a soul perspective. There are 7 major frequency centers in the body, he began, each with a different vibration interacting with (sometimes controlling, sometimes being controlled by) your thoughts. My ears perked up. This sounded similar to the MindOver-Matter stuff we had talked about all weekend: the concept that thoughts and frequencies control each other. Continuing he said, If you master the energies in each of these centers, your life will get better and better. The next several hours explored MindOver-Matter much more in depth without focusing directly on it. When the meeting was over, I said my goodbyes with special thanks to Buck for taking the time to meet with me. Little did I know he would, from that point on, be a pivotal person in my life.

A Test of Mind-Over-Matter in Healing

25

Throughout the next week working on my school research, it was very hard for me to concentrate. My thoughts constantly drifted to meeting Buck and all we had talked about. When I wasnt adrift in remembering our conversations, my thoughts were shooting out like beams of light in a tantalizing focus on whatever hopes and dreams were just waiting for me to bring into reality. It was like being a kid in a candy store: trying to choose between riches, fame, success, love, good food! I could have them all! Nothing interrupted my frenzy of focusing until I got a call from Kate. We had been keeping in contact every other week, so the call didnt surprise me until I heard her voice. The usual calm, collected Kate was in a tizzy, her voice shaking and her nose sniffling. She was totally beside herself, hardly able to get a sentence out, a complete wreck. This was so unlike her. Kate was always on top of things, able to see situations from many angles. It was as if she had suddenly become a lost child, panicked because she couldnt find her mother. Whats going on? I whispered, fearing any loud noise would lead her to total melt-down. She told me her dog, Pooh-Bear or Pooh as everyone called her, had developed an extremely fast-moving cancer.

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Pooh was Kates baby and best friend. The prospect of losing her presented a crushing blow. This cancer had come in like a firestorm. In record time it produced 14 lumps ranging in size up to a golf ball, spaced at various points throughout Poohs body. Kate had taken her to the vet that morning and the vet said there was no way to stop the cancer. She had told Kate that Pooh had a very short time to live, maybe only weeks, but that Pooh was not yet in any pain, buying a little time for Kate to say goodbye. Hearing Kates distress, I remembered Buck describing the minister who healed her husbands cancer with images. I wondered if it would work here. Why not try it? What was there to lose? Luckily the talks with Buck gave me an added degree of confidence I hadnt had before. Listening to Kate sob, it seemed she was already overwhelmed and probably couldnt focus, so I decided not to ask her to help. Ever since the raccoon, my internal crosstalk always brought up doubts such as Did I assess the animals injuries correctly? and Was the whole thing just a story in my mind? Crosstalk always has 20-20 hindsight, but in this case, just that morning the vet had already stated the impossibility of recovery, so my assessment of severity was correct. After Kate had a chance to let go and have a good cry, we said our sleep tight goodnights. I sat down in a comfortable chair and started to focus. I didnt know if I could bring up enough of the laser sharp focus to be effective, but dived into the image anyway. Imagining myself standing next to Pooh, seeing her lying on her dog bed, I put all my effort into seeing a clear image: the grain of her hair, the white whiskers around her muzzle, her long, puffy tail. Then I imagined my hands as being energy fields of light rather than solid. Once my image was clear, I imagined reaching into her body with my light hands, searching for the lumps. For each lump I found, I made an image of it dissolving; then disappearing. My imaginary hands went through her entire body little by little. About half an hour later, when I couldnt feel any more lumps, I finished by pulling my hands out and patted Pooh on her imaginary head. Kate and I talked several times over the next week and somehow, very uncharacteristically, I kept my image secret. A week and a

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half after the image work, I called her and was surprised when she answered the phone in a decidedly better mood. Good to hear you so happy, whats going on? I asked gingerly. If Kate was really feeling better, I wanted to tell her about my image work. The urge to release my secret was killing me. My fear had been she would put hope in my image work and if it failed, she would fall even further. With her in a better mood, maybe she could hear my story and take it with a grain of salt. As that thought crossed my mind, it was as if my mouth had a will of its own. I blurted out the story like a rapid-fire machine gun. Before she had a chance to respond, I told her about my hands of light and how my image targeted each of the lumps. (Ive always been terrible at keeping exciting secrets.) Ohmy she paused, I took the dog to the vet three days ago for a follow up and the vet was flabbergasted. All the lumps were gone. The vet had told Kate she must be doing something pretty special to have that kind of resultno medication, no surgery. Wow. Thank you Buck! Bolstered by the Pooh results, my desire to test Mind-OverMatter exploded. What could I go for next? There were just too many things I wanted to have happen. How could I choose? My mind was spinning wildly: a little fun, a little money, a little love. Which comes first? At the time, I craved a more substantial challenge that clearly demonstrated Mind-Over-Matter. After returning to California, my success with Mind-OverMatter continued. I was hired to teach at the university; I found a place to live in a country setting. But somehow, I was still looking for the big challenge, something that would really stretch my MindOver-Matter abilities. Whats the old saying, Be Careful What You Wish For? Lo and behold, the universe answered my consistently-focused vibration. I encountered a real medical monster, a formidable foe, a real challenge to my imagination skills.

A Formidable Foe!

26

I had never heard of an amoeba being anything but a creature on a microscope slide. I learned about them in science class, the only one-celled animals in nature; an amazing anomaly. But what they didnt teach was how they can get you. Amoeba are parasites. Ever heard of amoebic dysentery? Anywhere in the world with a warm climate and stagnant water can be a breeding ground, including Africa, Mexico and most of South America. Did they teach you that when amoeba are out of water, they dont die? Bet they didnt. They are like flies in the winter. Flies go into hibernation during the winter and wake up when it becomes warm. If youve ever had a cabin in the woods, when you return in spring, the first thing you do is sweep all the little fly bodies out of the cabin because as soon as they warm up, they will start flying around. Annoying as all get-out! When an amoeba is taken out of water, it forms a little crystalline-looking thing the doctors call a cyst. My introduction to amoeba happened after eating at an African restaurant on Californias central coast. The owner had just returned from Africa. He had visited relatives for three weeks and brought back genuine African spices for his restaurant. His proud,

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pudgy face beamed as he offered tantalizing descriptions of each spice and where it came from. We ate heartily. I chose the lentil stew. True to his word, it tasted fabulous. I guess the amoeba like lentil stew as much as I do. Several weeks later my stomach started to get really upset if I didnt eat, not just the hungry-growling upset, but really upset! When I did eat, double-over intestinal pain immediately followed. Unfortunately for humans (and especially me!), if you happen to drink the stagnant water, or soft drinks, tea and anything else made from stagnant water, you run the risk of getting amoeba. You can even get it from food washed in the water, even if the food is a vegetable or spice that was washed many moons ago. The amoeba will just stick to the spice surface and turn into a cyst. Weeks or years later, someone eats the spice andvoila!the cyst changes back into its active state. Yuck. Now you have amoeba in your system. If all it did was create intestinal mayhem, it wouldnt be that big a deal, but it doesnt stop there. Amoeba, left unchecked, will eat through the intestinal wall and get into the spinal fluid, then migrate to the brain and kill the host. This process takes about 6 short months! Once through the intestinal wall, it is almost impossible to kill. Tests showed amoeba cysts. Amoeba is so rare in the U.S. that my doctor had to pull out his desk reference and study up on the ramifications. I cant remember a more helpless feeling than sitting in the doctors office, in pain, and the doctor pulls out a book to look up my symptoms. Thats like a plumber needing to pull out a Do-It-Yourself manual to unclog your toilet. There are only three medications for amoeba, all antibiotics, each one worse than the previous, the last one requiring an intravenous drip lying in a hospital bed. Amoeba is nasty stuff and apparently very hard to completely kill. Not only were my intestines becoming a fitness center for Type A personality amoeba, but the medication made me wretch so bad, I couldnt get food to stay down. Just before the end of each medication course, usually on day 11 or 12 of the 14-day course, when the antibiotics would start to win the battle, I would have a sudden burst of diarrhea (no pun intended) and immediately afterward, all symptoms would go away. Whew!

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Although antibiotics killed the active amoeba, they didnt get the cysts. The formidable foe returned twice more. My battle ranged over an entire year with three repeats. The third episode hit during my summer internship with a company in Redondo Beach. This time, it scared the pants off me because I was at a summer job, away from my hometown and the doctor who knew my situation. What could I do? I couldnt see the doctor until I traveled back home a week later, and to redo all the tests with another doctor would take at least a week, maybe two, and possibly some book-thumbing before any action could be taken. I couldnt wait. The effects of the symptoms were too strong; I was really sick. Visions of becoming a vegetable danced in my brain. Fear raised its ugly head. The worst of it was that, although I could see help, it was at best off in the distance. The only thing worse than waiting for help to arrive is knowing the specific delay time and all the factors involved in the delay. It wreaks havoc on hope. Tension mounted as fear increased. People started noticing that my usual laid-back mood was becoming vicious and short tempered. I needed to take action somehow. Once again, imagery work came to the rescue because there was no other immediate option. I imagined a tiny pinpoint of extremely bright light in the center of my intestines and put all my focus and energy into it. I pumped white light into it, pumped healing energy into that pinpoint spot, made it grow, expand; and as it expanded, I pushed out all energies, beings, dark light and anything else that wasnt part of my healthy body. This was a slow process. I could feel the amoeba energy and it was really nasty. They didnt want to leave. I had to be very precise and thorough with my expanding ball of light. The intensity of my Will to force everything out was born of fear, fear of death, fear of internal damage, fear of an unknown future. My focus was absolute. Refusing to acknowledge anything except my increasing white energy, I could see in my image the energy of the amoeba as little dark spots on the surface of my white light ball. The effort needed was amazing. Buckets of sweat were soaking my shirt and pants as my concentration was stronger than it had ever been before. All the intent I could muster, from the depths of my being, was focused on expelling foreign energy.

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I kept expanding this light ball and pushing the creatures out. As the light ball expanded, I made an image of another ball, much bigger than me, surrounding me, being the limits to my soul or spirit. I needed to push the amoeba until they were forced out of this bigger ball. I kept pushing, breaths becoming small gasps, sweat running down my chest. I felt like I do when I am lifting heavy weights or doing pushups; where I take a quick breath and then hold it while my muscles are working hard, releasing it when the weights have been lifted to the appropriate height or the pushup is complete. As soon as I had expanded the small white ball outside the perimeter of my soul limits, I could feel the amoeba release, feel their hold on me collapse. It felt like a rubber band grabbing my intestines, being pulled tighter and tighter, then suddenly releasing and relaxing. My body relaxed. I had won! They were out of my system! Woo Hoo! All of a sudden I made a mad dash to the restroom and had the deluge of diarrhea that earmarked a battle won! The battle had taken more than an hour and a half. After calming down I looked at the whole experience and found each of the ingredients for a Mind-Over-Matter recipe somehow incorporated: Strong Desire: Boy did I have this! My fear helped make the desire so strong it hit that place of no other option. It was the fear that rolled the boulder up the hill in an instant. This big ticket item, my life and health, was a true desire. Clear Image: Making a clear image was actually pretty easy. Just imagine dots of crud on my clean energy and force those dots out. Holding that image as it expanded, not missing any part of the ball of light, making sure the ball was not lopsided, was the most difficult part and took most of the time! Inroad: The inroad came from having previously used the image of dark energy being removed from my injured ankles. The image of the amoeba as dark spots was already in place.

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Five senses and a feeling of completion: The sensation of pushing them out almost came by itself. It was as if some part of me understood what it would feel like. I could feel the ball of energy expanding through my body; I could feel the heat generated as I made a supreme effort. Maybe working on my ankles so many times before made this part easy. By the time I was ready to make a completion emotion, the amoeba were out and my body literally felt completion! Laser sharp focus: Rarely have I had that much focus. My Personal Will came right in when needed. The rest of my life stopped. There was nothing else. This was so important I had to complete it. My mind brought up crosstalk about failure and questions about what others might think, but my desire was so strong I refused those thoughts. Repetition: I only went through the image once: One grueling, long, growing image. But that was in part because I already had the image from healing my ankles. I could concentrate on making the image perfect rather than what the content might be. First time images tend to need repetition until they are fluid in your mind. Belief: Fear took care of this. I had no option but to succeed. Normally, repetition would have been needed to create belief. Expectation: Again, the fear created a situation where I had no choice. This was expectation at its most potent! Personal Will: My Will was important to keep the image going. There were many times when I was out of breath, almost hyperventilating while growing the ball of light. These times required my Will to hold the image as well as stop any crosstalk. Letting Go: At the end, when the amoeba had been pushed out, my bodily functions forced my focus to change; and my success made it clear I wouldnt need to repeat the image! That was more than 10 years ago and to this day, the amoeba have not returned.

Epilogue
What a fantastic journey this has been. My dad, bless his tortured soul started me on the adventure by suggesting the idea of mind-over-matter and my mother, bless her too, gave me a first taste of guided imagery. I didnt start out seeking the internal magic but with each new experience, flying with eagles, throwing rocks at stop signs, getting an apartment, my simple enjoyment of adventure grew into a lifelong quest; a quest for the how-to of inspiration. It was as if the muse was calling to me as much as I was pursuing her. She dangled lessons in front of me like summer tantalizes bees with wildflowers. As my pursuit deepened and awareness grew, many teachers flowed into my life, uncovering more pieces of the puzzle, sweeping the dust out of the dark awareness corners. Some of them stayed to be friends and mentors, others left when the teaching was complete. I thank them all. When I was finally ready, my Spiritual Master, Buck, arrived. Meeting Buck was truly a blessed event, an amazing man teaching amazing lessons. His unselfish generosity with his time, working with me for many years through all my thick headed questions, not only on the topic of Mind-Over-Matter but on my spiritual development has left me with a debt of gratitude I can never repay. And now, it is my turn to give back, to be the teacher, to show up when the student is ready, to assist the muse in attracting new quest seekers to the internal path. My new quest is to inspire, to give hope, to all who are looking inward. To reassure them that the path inside is not as scary as it may seem at first. In fact, it can be magical, an adventure worth far more than the price of admission. I offer this book as a first step leading toward that exciting internal journey and wish for you the best success in your life. Its your turn. Go for it!

About the Author

Lawrence Rinzel, an avid meditation practitioner of more than 20 years, has studied various forms of mysticism and new-age ideas including the Kabala, Reiki, and Prana Vidyha. He is a National Guild of Hypnotists Certified Hypnotherapist and an enthusiastic pursuer of the inner workings of human beings. Lawrence grew up in Wisconsin and moved to California after completing his Bachelors in Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM). While attending UWM, he studied group dynamics and counseling and volunteered at the local counseling center where he was trained in support group facilitation. He led mens and coed support groups for many years before moving to the west coast and working as a drug and alcohol abuse counselor as well as a supervisor in a head injury recovery clinic. Although the inner function of human beings is a priority, Lawrence enjoys working with his hands, building projects and understanding how the physical world works. This part of his personality led him to return to school and obtain a Masters in Industrial Engineering at Cal Poly. Upon completing his degree, Cal Poly hired him as a Lecturer to teach Manufacturing Engineering.