Category: Applied Shamanism
Article: Hypnosis: The Secular Sacrament
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
I often think of hypnosis as a secular sacrament. At first glance, “secular sacrament” appears to be an oxymoron. How can something sacred, and therefore traditionally a part of the religious community within a society, be the same thing as something secular, and therefore a part of the political and socioeconomic community of a society? This chapter will show how hypnosis functions as a secular sacrament, yet remains outside of the trappings of the larger cultural and social realities.
Article: Opening the Doors to the Self – The Shamanic Journey
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
We understand the breadth and depth of the self in many ways through many types of experiences. Often, we come to understand our experience as human beings by directing or projecting parts of ourselves either outward or inward. The self at a soul level reveals, through the language of images, which parts of ourselves are seeking understanding at ever-deepening levels. In relationships with others, we project these parts outward in the form of images. In dreams, we project these parts inward in the form of images. The reflection we receive back gives us information on which we base our sense of self.
Article: Opening the Doors to the Self – Dreams
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
Widening our definitions of reality to include phenomena which are regularly perceived by the unconscious can help us find the path back to the self at a soul level. This is true even if these phenomena are discounted by the conscious mind. Dreams provide a valuable perspective on this journey and their messages are available to us on a regular basis. In order to decipher those messages, we must allow the defenses of the conscious mind to rest. This allows us to use its acuity to organize the information we are receiving in dreams. By using hypnosis to gain access to dream images generated during sleep, we can perceive that we are actually developing a relationship with profound and utterly personal guidance.
Article: Opening the Doors to the Self – Spirit Involvement
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
As we have seen, there are many paths to self-knowledge. Understanding the self is a complex process because the self is so complex. There are many facets to our being that our conscious-mind awareness generally blocks out. It must do this in order to deal with the very complicated external world we must negotiate in our daily life. The creation of a vehicle from which to explore the external world is one of the primary tasks we have to accomplish as part of our development. For many of us, this development is not as linear or logical as we would like to believe.