The delusion is that any particular psychotherapy is based on fact, not metaphor.

All psychotherapies can be reduced to these four equations:

E + R = B
B + R = I
I + R = T
T + P = C

Where:

E = Explanation
R = Ritual
I = Input
B = Belief
T = Therapy
P = Practice
C = Change
In other words:

Explanation plus Ritual equals Belief
Belief plus Ritual equals Input
Input plus Ritual equals Therapy
Therapy plus Practice equals Change

Whichever of the 400 or so psychotherapies you choose you can be sure there is a Ritual involved.

Three examples:

1. The Ritual of classical Psychoanalysis consisted of:

Patient lying on a couch
Free association by the patient
Mostly silence from the therapist

2. The Ritual of Emotional Freedom Techniques [EFT] consists of:

Finger tapping on or by the client on meridians in her body
Before and after measurement of discomfort on an imagined 1 – 10 scale.
Active direction of the therapist.

3. The Ritual of Hypnotherapy consists of:

An induction Ritual [words, music and / or breathing techniques]
Positive suggestions for change and use of the client's imagination
Active direction of the therapist

All three therapies (and all others) are preceded by an Explanation.

This Explanation may be offered directly to the client or patient or it may be implied. Books, movies, plays, TV and the Web frequently provide cultural expectations of what to expect in a therapist's office.

These expectations coupled with the relationship of therapist and client (arising from the 4 equations) are what bring about change. [This special relationship is also known as "Psychotherapeutic Eros"]

The Explanation rests on a Theory.

In the case of psychoanalysis it was theorized that free association (letting the patient talk freely about whatever came into her head) would eventually help to resolve inner conflicts among her id, ego and superego.

In the case of EFT the theory is that there is an imbalance in the energy that runs in the client's body through a bundle of meridians.

In the case of hypnotherapy the theory holds that the client is basically ruled by her subconscious and that hypnotic techniques provide her with direct access to her subconscious mind.

No meridians, ids, egos, superegos or subconscious ** minds can be seen under a microscope. In other words, they don't actually exist. But believing that they do – or at least behaving as if they exist – encourages Belief.

And with Belief we have the beginnings of successful psychotherapy. Because the fascinating fact is that Belief in any particular Ritual can bring a successful result.

In other words, the ritual itself is therapeutic because the client or patient, and often the therapist, believes it will be.

Let's look at another therapy: Rogerian. In contrast to classical psychoanalysis, the client faces the therapist. Whatever the client says is fed back to her in similar words thus demonstrating the therapist's understanding of the client.

'Unconditional positive regard' is a key element of the Rogerian Ritual.

The theory underlying the Ritual of Rogerian discussion is that inner strengths in the client will be fostered as long as the therapist continues to reflect the client's words to her while at the same time displaying total acceptance of her as a person.

Another example of the 4 equations is EMDR, which is basically a form of hypnosis.
Is CBT [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy] different? Clearly, when CBT works, change in thoughts and behavior is real, not metaphorical. But what enables one client to benefit from CBT and another not? It's the 4 equations herein presented.

** Donald Robertson answers the question: Is there actually such a thing as 'the subconscious'?

"I don't think so. The use of this term, in fact, really highlights one of the major problems in the field of hypnotherapy. This concept was not used in the original hypnotism of Braid, Bernheim, et al., And was only imported later by Pierre Janet – and 'the unconscious' by Freud and his followers. It's a slightly metaphysical and pseudoscientific concept that isn't normally used in mainstream psychology, having fallen out of fashion about half a century ago.

Hypnotherapists often incorporate elements of seriously outdated psychological or psychotherapeutic theories into their work. They do this simply because they tend to attend courses which steer them away from modern research and toward slightly cultish or fadish 'pop psychology' approaches such as NLP, or toward very old books written before the 'cognitive revolution' in psychology penetrated psychotherapy.

Obviously, there are things which we are not conscious of at any given time, and things which we cannot easily be conscious of, such as certain internal processes of our body and nervous system. It seems clear, though, that people don't just mean 'brain' by 'subconscious mind' but something much more speculative.

Conveniently, the subconscious mind ends up being defined as a 'realm' which can contain almost anything and which can be directly observed by neither therapist nor client. Unsurprisingly, therefore, it has become a magnet for pseudoscientific theories.

They say that flawed theories often collapse under their own internal contradictions. Freud thought the unconscious was the seat of the Oedipus complex, Adler thought it was the inferiority complex, Jung the archetypes, Klein the internalized breast, Rank thought it stored birth trauma, etc., etc. Therapists of all persuasions used it as a repository for whatever they wanted to project into it – because nobody could check.

There are, in fact, many different conceptual problems with the 'subconscious mind.' (The subject of my master's dissertation!) So perhaps the simplest point to make is that it's fallen out of use as a concept in most modern psychology, and has been replaced by reference to specific non-conscious neurological processes, etc.

To pick just one of the issues at stake, however, for anyone vaguely interested in philosophy of science … Aristotle warned nearly 2,500 years ago against the tendency to take "potential 'entities and treat them as' actual' ones – a common fallacy in primitive science.

When Freud and many hypnotherapists talk about 'the unconscious mind' or 'the subconscious', they are often simply referring to the potential that a person has to experience certain emotions or memories, etc.

If I am 'regressed', for example, and recall an event in childhood, the hypnotist often says that it was stored in my subconscious mind. The appeal of that is that it's close to a figure of speech we use in ordinary language. However, even in common sense 'folk psychology' people also recognize that by 'stored' they often mean that traces or ingredients of an experience exist which are reconstituted at a later date.

The memory or emotion could be stored, in other words, in the same form (like a picture in the attic) or in potential, in another form (like music stored on a hard drive). It's generally recognized now that when people try to recover memories they usually embellish them. The more vague or distant the memory, the more embellishment that occurs. That's because we're not simply 'uncovering' a picture in the attic, but re-assembling it from a few ingredients each time we re-experience it, and filling in the gaps with guesswork.

If we think of potential memories or emotions as being 'hidden' inside the subconscious awaiting being uncovered then we're usually led into many other similarly false conclusions about the nature of human experience and psychotherapy.

For instance, if we think of 'repressed emotions' as lurking hidden from view in the unconscious mind then it encourages the notion that 'venting' them should be therapeutic, a notion which makes little sense if we think that potential emotions don't actually exist except in the form of a predisposition to respond under certain circumstances. In fact, there's a general consensus among researchers that 'venting' is of little long-term therapeutic value, and trying to 'vent' anger often makes it stronger, rather than purging it from the mind. "

Donald Robertson
College Principal & Executive Director
Senior Clinician Hypnotherapist (NCH)
Registered Psychotherapist (UKCP)
Member of the European Register of Psychotherapists (ERP)
Fellow of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health (RSPH)
The UK College of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy Ltd.

A great historical example of therapy delusion was published in The Skeptical Inquirer November / December 2012: The now near-dead therapy of Phrenology was exposed as "hugely influential despite being totally invalid."

As ever we have what we need at our fingertips. The growth of delusion and human frailty, alongside the possession of egotistical attributes mirrored back to us in the distorted looking-glass of the twentieth century have given us an awareness of self-or perhaps, better out, an overriding self-consciousness. This self has grown so absurdly large that only one possibility remains. Like a balloon overfilled with hot air, the ego must pop.

By ego I mean the delusion of self-identification, separation, and division. This fundamental delusion of humanity, which seems almost innate, underpins the acting out of hatred and violence from crossing interpersonal boundaries to gross atrocities, disrespect for the Earth, and human toxicity and dis-ease of all kinds.

Knowing the other as ourself, the earth and ourselves as not separate, the outward differences of race, nationality, and religion as embraceable rather than divisive, constitutes a spiritual revolution, a tsunami in awareness, a quantum leap in consciousness. Such a deepening in the fundamental understanding of humankind is the only way in which the modern world will rescue itself from the threatening, contemporary malaise of ignorance, complacency, intolerance, and darkness.

This makes a clear, serious, accurate map for human awakening a mandatory requirement for the salvation of humanity.

There is only one salvation. It is not through religion. It is not through opinionatedness. It is not through disagreement, nor self-direction, or ego-struggle, or seeking of any kind. Salvation lies in the sincere esoteric Truth of Reality, of understanding and immersing ourselves in Truth in devotion, surrender, and love.

Here we enter the clashing rocks of contradiction and paradox. For if to compose a map for the spiritual aspirant is mandatory, then so too is the organization of Truth-and, as any self-respecting mystic knows, the organization of Truth is anathema to Truth. Truth is vibrant, chaotic, unfixable, and disorganized. Religion and dogma are tidy, inflexible, fixed, and reliable.

So we have to teach Truth lightly, never try to close up the holes too much while always being thorough, leaving a little roughness, untidiness, some little imperfection as a concourse for illumination, never quite singing completely perfectly. The teaching of Truth is characterized by contradiction, spontaneity, the spiritual over the literal. I have added my own spice to this mix and it is that spiritual truths are in their own way exacting, not raggedy and open to dispute or to being molded to fit an egotistic appetite or tendency. I have reached the point where Truth is apparent to me, where those who speak Truth are appealing to me, while those who don’t are not. I am no longer, hardly ever, attracted to spiritual teachings. In the end Truth all sounds the same, so whether you hear it through Anandamayi Ma, Ramakrishna, or the yawn of my dog, Truth it is and Truth it remains.

In the realm of the opposites we are strangers to each other, varieties of humanity struggling to make it through our changing circumstances. In eternity, however, we have never not known each other. In spiritual understanding, we are intimately acquainted, empathetically and compassionately joined.

Only true awakening in the heart of collective humanity will result in the Eternal Truth being lived and in our future benefiting from this inherent peace, understanding, mutual tolerance, and celebration of each other in our diversity, in our variety, through the manifest multiple tastes of the Eternal Divine Person.

To be arrogant enough to create a written, spoken, or otherwise given transmission of spiritual teaching that will in any way cover the scope and range of the reality of Truth is arrogance indeed! As teachers we must be humble. We will never cover the ground, explore the range, or even in a broad sweep touch the edges of Truth. Over and above this, we may never have any particular or far-reaching influence whatsoever. We may simply survive in obscurity, inhabiting dark corners of human history, still murmuring about the Eternal with small voices that people are unable or unwilling to hear.

So why do it at all?

We don’t know. The teaching function is not given to all, even to those who have awakened in whatever way. All I know is that you enter the stream of Truth at whatever point you are bidden, in whatever way you are told, however Truth finds you. There is no response to, “This is not a good time, or “Why?” or “Could it be a bit later?” or “I have my child’s birthday coming up, how about Saturday?” or “Just one more relationship or year of making money,” or “Could we wait until I have fulfilled my desires?” Spiritual destiny demands your attraction, your complete distraction, and your constant remembering of the True Self. Spiritual capacity demands your full blossoming, your turning your face incontrovertibly toward the sun of illumination, your offering the fruits of your sadhana to all. Spiritual potential demands your journeying, your struggling and testing in the ordeal, facing the tests, the trials, and the suffering of purification in the flame of Truth, in the cloud of unknowing, in the waters of spiritual baptism.

Whatever you are and whatever I am does not matter in the end; we are all the same and the relationship between what we are and what we will become is unimportant in the great thrum of Eternal Nature.

1. That you can get somewhere positive by defeating something negative.

When we act to improve our lives by defeating some aspect of ourselves (for example, “an old, unwanted behavior pattern,” or a recurring issue of “self-sabotage”) who is it, exactly, who wins?

One of the most enduring and unfortunate delusions to come out of the personal growth movement (especially the “monster power growth” version of it) is the idea that we all contain a “strong self” that can be trained to compel the subjugation of our “weak self.” It is completely understandable that almost all of us develop this impression. Human beings have been trying to make meaning out of their internal conflicts, their affinity with the light or dark sides of things, with their distresses related to virtue and guilt, for tens of thousands of years-long before the invention of the personal growth weekend seminar, as far as we know.

The easiest way to allow personal change and growth is to include-not to exclude or defeat-whatever it is that is not working in our lives. We can recognize that unwanted patterns of behavior are simply old solutions that have unwittingly outlasted their usefulness. Actually, when we go beyond this-when we seek to actively respect whatever it is that seems to be causing us the most pain and frustration-the experience of including and changing even long-standing patterns becomes safe, fun, and rewarding. Our old patterns are much more available for easy, comfortable change when we do not fight against them. In fact, when they are respected properly, we find that old, unwanted behaviors usually seek to change themselves. It’s as if they want to catch up with the rest of us, and that makes for a wonderful, and defeat-free, reunion.

2. That people who take the “path of least resistance” in life are weak.

Everything in the Universe is coordinated to move and change along paths of least resistance. Everything-electrons, inter-galactic clouds of hydrogen gas, white mice, and melting ice. There are no exceptions. So, it is curious and weird that, for humans, the words “taking the path of least resistance” are usually tossed out as in insult. Now, we are all getting gradually better about this. One is rarely congratulated about the pointlessness and intensity of one’s struggle any more. Still, who do we think we are, anyway?

3. That fighting ourselves shows strength and builds character.

Some of the saddest words are, “At least I respect myself enough to despise myself.” Proper self-regard is always the most courteous way to be in life and the universe. It invites the best for and from others. Too little self-respect provokes other humans to want to withdraw their care and support. They can’t help but feel this at some level. It is an ancient instinct in our hunter-gatherer DNA, a not-quite-knowing designed to protect the well-being of the whole troupe. The instinct can be overridden, and it often is, but to do this requires some energy and work. Proper self-respect is never costly or inconvenient for anyone. And, it is hardly ever fatal.

4. That denying and disrespecting our parents is a good idea.

Almost all of western psychotherapy seeks, in one way or another, to separate clients from their parents. This movement is in exactly the wrong direction. If we want to know what would come out of the mix if we put our parents into a giant blender and then hit the frappè button, the answer is-we would exist. We are exactly, precisely that combination.

Our broadband connection to the flow of life-the cable sockets themselves, so to speak-happens to be them. Not personally, necessarily, but certainly energetically, the sockets are where they are. We can deny this, but then we have to live on dial-up. When we deny parents, we deny ourselves and cut ourselves off from the sources of strength in life. This never has a good effect. If our parents are dangerous, crazy, or lethally boring, it is probably a good idea to stay away from them physically, but this is not the same as disrespecting them.

5. That you as an intelligent adult would never, ever mess your life up in order to prevent something really bad from happening to someone else 100 years ago (just to cite a round number).

As it turns out, this seems to be exactly what all of us humans value doing more than anything else. We are-all of us-driven to make sure that we experience some version of the tragedies and unresolved losses of the family members who came before us. As long as we experience their pain, or something closely like it, we have hope to provide our families with a better past, which, it follows very [il]logically, will allow us to experience a better present and future for ourselves. This is complicated business, and highly seductive. When our pain now signals us that we are on track toward past and future happiness, we go into a deep, deep trance of secure and loving family salvation. As crazy as this sounds, this is what we do, and are pretty much screwed until we start to catch on. Messing up our own life is never a good way to show respect for anyone.

6. That the past is a failed version of a better future.

The future is not a perfected or improved past. Our experiences as human beings, whatever this involves in the moment, always represent the very best life solutions that our systems have been able to achieve. We all deal with utterly mysterious and painful inherited patterns, which we then combine with the bafflingly elusive meanings and beliefs we invent for ourselves. However huge the resulting mess might seem to be, it is truly the most creative, positive, and loving solution we could find for ourselves (and for everyone else who was involved) at the time that the unwanted patterning became hyper-stabilized and hard to change. Truly, we are all doing the best we can with what we have, and with what we had.

7. That now is the only time there is.

Being present in the present is wonderful and useful. It’s an indispensable art, an essential part of changing our relationship with ourselves and with life itself. However, for humans who live in time/space, the future and past are real too. Properly created, a good future activates our choosing of it, so that it comes into manifestation against a supportive backdrop called the past. There is no substitute for having a good relationship with our future and our past. After all now, we are now our future’s past, are we not?

8. That your brain is supposed to care about how you feel.

Our brain’s main function is to filter out everything that doesn’t fit its own ideas about what fits with its ideas. Consequently, it is always very busy not noticing things. However, the good result of this is that it provides us with a stable, more-or-less predictable world in which to live.

To make the experience of being human even more fun, the older, most reliable parts of our brains-our creature brains, which don’t even know that they are parts of human beings-have only one important success indicator, one way to tell if they are doing a good job. This part of the brain doesn’t think, analyze, create, synthesize or talk. It is simply there to establish and maintain associations between this and that. It doesn’t care what this and that are, as long as the associations are intact. Thus, it does not care about the content of our human experience; it only cares that that content (the associations between this and that) do not change. Consequently, its most important success indicator is the answer to the question, “Are we dead yet?” If the answer is no, it knows to keep on with whatever it has been doing. If this happens to involve our being miserable in life, at the human level, that is not its problem, nor even its concern.

Our brain is not supposed to care how we feel. We are supposed to care how we feel.

9. That positive change will inevitably lead to more positive change.

Most really wonderful, positive change can eventually lead to feeling bad again. There are some beautiful ways of working with this unfortunate aspect of being human, so that it is not actually always true good change leads to feeling bad. However, for most of us, learning to allow wonderful change to stay positive takes a little practice. This is what we call “the ecology of personal growth.” It is quite an art form, and an extremely valuable thing to learn.

10. That our private thoughts and feelings do not affect the experience of other people.

Everything we think and feel affects all the space, all the time. We really do have this kind of huge effect. Having power like this is never a bad thing. Learning to recognize and use this power is a many lifetimes’ respectfully creative journey. Overall, this is pretty good news.

© 2008 Carl Buchheit and NLP Marin

The discussion on latent homosexuality found its way into the public arena when the July 26 edition of MSNBC hyped Ann Coulter’s interview with host Donny Deutsch, which she said of former President Bill Clinton exhibts “some sort of latent homosexuality.” When Coulter was asked by the host if she was indeed calling Clinton a “latent homosexual,” Coulter replied, “Yeah.” “The level of rampant promiscuity by Clinton does show some level of latent homosexuality.” In support of her assessment, of Clinton, Coulter mentioned “passages” she had memorized from the Starr Report resulting from the investigation into the Monica Lewinsky controversy.

Latent homosexuality is an erotic tendency toward members of the same sex which is not consciously experienced or expressed in overt action. The term was originally proposed by Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, “latent” or “unconscious” homosexuality which derived from failure of the defense of repression and and sublimation permit or threaten emergence into consciousness of homosexual impulses, which give rise to conflict manifested in the appearance of symptoms. These symptoms include fear of being homosexual, dreams with manifest and “latent” homosexual content, conscious homosexual fantasies and impulses, homosexual panic, disturbance in heterosexual functioning, and passive-submissive responses to other males.

The Freudian position on latent homosexuality is summarized in this quotation by Karl Abraham: “In normal individuals the homosexual component of the sexual instinct undergoes sublimation. Between men, feelings of unity and friendship become divested of all sexuality. The man of normal feeling is repelled by any physical contact implying tenderness with another of his own sex. …Alcohol suspends these feelings. When they are drinking, men will fall upon one another’s necks and kiss each other … when sober, the same men will term such conduct effeminate. … The homosexual components which have been repressed and sublimated by the influences of education become unmistakably evident under the influence of alcohol.”

In keeping with this train of thoughts, it is not unusual for individuals who exhibit characteristics of latent homosexuality often find themselves drawn to ultra-masculine professions, such as policeman and fireman; to name a few. Many professional sports also serve as a magnet for latent homosexuals, especially the more violent and aggressive sports. The two sports boxing and wresting latent homosexuality is quite evident. And where many of the features involved in the act of intercourse between two lovers are present in the ring. For example, in both boxing and wrestling the participant hug, embrace, stroke the opponent’s sweaty and scantly-covered body like any couple engaged in sexual activities. Many psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists postulate the theory that both the boxer and the wrestler experience profound rage and guilt for their exhibitionist conduct, and for giving in to their homosexual desires. Therefore, each participant is highly-motivated to punish each other, sometime ending in death, for gratifying the unconscious homosexual desire to embrace and make love to another man.

However, the term, latent homosexuality, as commonly used in clinical practice assumes psychological characteristics. It is important to stress that the term is not used in reference to overt homosexual who attempts to suppress his homosexuality and tries to lead a heterosexual life, it applies only to heterosexuals. Many writers and some researchers have questioned the validity of latent homosexuality on both theoretical and clinical grounds. Others have expressed the opinions that latent homosexuality has been a convenient psychopathological “catch-all” category in which many types pathology are assigned, often, with little or no relationship to homosexuality.

Many who questioned the term “latent homosexuality” were indeed skeptical of the “latency” concept. In an effort to put this concern to rest a group of scientific researchers headed by Irving Bieber published their conclusion in 1963 titled; Homosexuality. A Psychoanalytic Study: By Irving Bieber, et al. This study was very broad and extensive. Bieber and his associated proved beyond doubts that the “latency” concept was an appropriate criteria by which latent homosexuality is usually diagnosed.

However, more than four decades after the Bieber’s study was published skeptism about the vilidity of latent homosexuality is generating lively discussions in the public arena. The gladiators at the Freudian gate should know that help is on the way. A modern day version of Bieber and associates in the form of three psychologist: H. E. Adams, L. W. Wright, Jr., and B. A. Lohr, who conducted an experiment to test Freud’s hypothesis. The conclusion was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology 105 (1996), under the title, “Is Homophobia Associates with Homosexual Arousal?” The finding of this study concluded that those who exhabited the most hostile and negative attitudes towards homosexuals demonstrated the hightest level of sexual arousal when exposed to homosexual pornography. In others words, their homophobia was a “reaction formation” designed to protect them from their own internal homosexual desires.

Paranoid Delusions Since the publication of Freud’s analysis of the Schreber case in 1911 psychotherapists and psychoanalysts have accepted the theory that there is a strong connection between latent homosexuality and paranoid delusions. Freud provided a skillful exposition of the theory that paranoid delusions represent various means in which the paranoid individual denies his latent homosexual desires. Freud theory had been confirmed repeatedly in many clinical studies of every researcher who worked with paranoid clients. An intense homosexual conflict is always present in the male paranoiac and is clearly obvious in the individual’s history and clinical material in the early stage of the illness.

Homophobia

Hostility and discrimination against homosexual individuals are well-documented facts. Too often these negative attitudes end in verbal and physical acts of violence against homosexual individuals. In fact, upward of 90% of homosexual men and lesbians report being the subject of verbal abuse and threats, and better than one-third are survivors of violent attacks related to their homosexuality. These attitudes and behaviors toward homosexuals are labeled homophobia. Homophobia is defined as terror of being in close quarters with homosexual men and women, and an irrational fear, hatred, and intolerance by heterosexual individuals of homosexual men and lesbians.

Psychoanalysts use the concept of repressed or latent homosexuality to explain the emotional malaise and irrational attitudes exhibited by individuals who feel guilty about their erotic interests and struggle to deny and repress homosexual impulses. In fact, when these individuals are placed in a situation that threatens to excite their own unwanted homosexual thoughts, they may overreact with panic, anger, or even murderous rage. To better understand this rage I direct the reader to what happened on Jenny Jones show. On March 06, 1995, Scott Amedure (who’s openly gay) appeared with Jonathan Schmitz on Jenny Jones talk show. Amedure revealed that he had a secret affection for Schmitz. Schmitz was not flattered, rather, he felt embarrassed and humiliated; off camera Schmitz expressed anger and rage. Three days after the show Schmitz purchased a shotgun. He drove to Amedure’s trailer and shot him twice through the heart, killing him.

It is commonly agreed among most researchers that anxiety about homosexuality typically does not occur in individuals who are same-sex oriented, but usually involves individuals who are ostensibly heterosexual and have difficulty coming to term with their homosexual feelings and impulses.

Adams, H.E., Wright, L.W., and Lohr, B.A., Is Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal?” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105 (1996): 440-445.

Bieber, Irving, et al. Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study: Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 32:111-114.

The I Ching put me into one of the toughest crises of my career as a psychologist. This ancient Chinese oracle can mirror the wisdom of the unconscious, or higher self. It had helped me solve problems, make decisions, and had even literally saved my life. But the doctorates I earned in psychology and social work operated from very different professional premises.

After many years of relying on the I Ching as a spiritual guide, I had begun integrating the method into psychotherapy sessions. It’s a valuable tool that empowers clients (who can learn the method themselves, if appropriate) and it offered an objective point of view that often revealed the hidden issues of the unconscious. I was a Jungian-oriented psycho-therapist and Jung, himself, had relied upon the I Ching for decades. He even wrote the introduction for the Wilhelm and Baynes translation.

This all made sense and had worked perfectly for years, until one day, in a most difficult case I could see that the I Ching reading the client received during a therapy session was the wrong answer. And, it was not slightly wrong, but totally and horribly, wrong. Like telling a small child that the parent’s divorce really was their fault, after all.

The I Ching’s judgment directly opposed my professional judgment as a psychologist. This threw me into a spiritual crisis of faith and a professional conflict in real-time during this session.

The client in question was trapped by her denial of the harmful nature of her father’s failures. (He was less nurturing than Attila the Hun.) She had created an adaptive delusion of his fathering that had helped her survive childhood, but imprisoned her as an adult, and eventually must be outgrown.

Every attempt to discuss the father’s negative history triggered a fierce defense of her “rosy” delusion. “He wasn’t as bad as people say” had been countering any criticism for decades. It blocked out a reality too painful for the child, but necessary for the adult to face. Perhaps, since she had come to trust the I Ching, if she were to cast a reading during our session, it could offer an objective view that she might take to heart.

The client was eager to hear this feedback and so was I–until I saw the answer it was my job to read to her. She had asked: “How should I view my father?” She threw the coins and yielded the hexagram of “The Family,” which made sense, but it had only positive comments describing and praising the behavior of the head of the family! (OMG)

Psychologically, this was dead wrong. This view could feed and further entrench her resistance to the truth. Should I choose psychology over spirituality and cancel the reading because I didn’t like the outcome? How could I responsibly include this reading in her session if it might further confirm her debilitating delusions of dad? Should I be using this powerful Jungian tool in therapy at all when I am not in control of the answers?

I chose, in the moment, to finish what I had begun and read aloud–with great distress and upset-how too much “severity toward one’s own flesh and blood leads to remorse” but is better than too little discipline. This seemed to justify the father! Lines 5 and 6 were worse! I read aloud in agony things like:

“As a king he approaches his family… a king is the symbol of a fatherly man who is richly endowed in mind. He does nothing to make himself feared; on the contrary, the whole family can trust him, because love governs their intercourse. His character of itself exercises the right influence… His work commands respect” and more (Wilhelm & Baynes translation).

Fortunately, before I was ready to abandon this gut-wrenching act of faith in the I Ching, the client burst into tears. “Oh my god!” she cried, “that’s the definition of a real father… my father never did any of those things!” And her life-long delusion began to melt right before our eyes.

The I Ching had reminded her of his “severity” (since it was being justified it in some cases it did not trigger her resistance), and then proceeded to praise this “severely” awful father for which she was not prepared. She could not overlook the unfairness and untruth of such praise for the man. In a yin-yang path of opposites, overly positive comments served to unearth a truth too negative to admit.

The client’s delusional system was defended against all criticism of father… but no one had ever praised him; why defend against that? Resistance is often focused in one direction. “Sometimes you initiate real change by taking things further in the wrong direction to unlock that resistance,” a wise shaman once told me. What a brilliant use of this “reverse psychology” by the I Ching. I can assure you it reversed some of my own doubts while helping the client.

The second, or relating, hexagram was “The Turning Point,” which this session was… for both therapist and client. I ultimately decided not to continue including the I Ching in psychotherapy sessions. Because, I phased out the “psychotherapy” altogether and worked exclusively with dreams and the I Ching.

What initially looked like the first serious mistake from the I Ching or “Book of Changes,” ended up changing two lives in one session and, in time, redesigning the sessions themselves.

This article asks questions about the possible links between the Law of Attraction, the Capgras Delusion and Parallel Universes. While it asks questions, we may be able to come up with at least partial answers en route.

It seems to me that this is the decade of explosion in the realms of physics. An explosion of knowledge, of assumption, of theory and indeed of fact.

Joseph Capgras, 1873-1950, was a French psychiatrist who, in 1923, first described this ‘disorder’ which he noticed in a French lady who complained of corresponding doubles in people she knew, including her own husband.

Quite a lot has been written on this subject ever since, following various experiments and observations. The latest is that it’s been seen to occur in people who show no signs of delusion whatever. It’s thought that about 2.5% of the World’s population are subject to this condition. This is where it becomes interesting. See how the thinking’s changed?

First, it was because people were delusional. The reason for this was brain damage. Then over the years, it was discovered that people didn’t need to be brain damaged, nor delusional, to be subject to these experiences. Could this possibly be linked to parallel universes? And if parallel universes, the Law of Attraction? Are people in some way ‘willing’ these experiences with their doppel-gangers?

I know my wording of this article could well be criticized. The great difficulty is that we’re trying to explain a type of physics that we don’t truly understand in the only possible way; in language we do understand.

One of the great theoretical physicists, speaking on television some time ago, told us that the laws of physics as we know them are probably just the tip of the iceberg. That there are other laws about which we know absolutely nothing.

Another very telling comment was made by another doctor of physics, that the mind is the only reality. So I feel that no longer do we simply suggest that perhaps the Law of Attraction, etc., is real. We now know it is. There is no further doubt, nor should there be in anyone’s mind. It’s now a case of learning the best method of ‘plugging in’ to the Universe.

Meanwhile, we go on using the Law of Attraction to the best of our abilities. I intend to pursue the parallel universe question, too. Moving from one universe to the next, seeing how their various histories developed and meeting our doubles is a positively mouth-watering concept!

So we have to ask ourselves. Is the Capgras Delusion really delusional? Apparently not. So the question is, what exactly is it?

Many heroes, villains and wars have been created because of monotheism (the belief in the existence of one god), but science and the technologies science produces are used in these wars.

The author Richard Dawkins has a very extreme style of writing in this particular book, he doesn’t mess about and storms in with very direct poignancy, so if you are deeply spiritual and religious, perhaps this is not the best choice of book for you……

The God Delusion is a remarkable argument against God, controversy arises as Dawkins blames god for a number of misdeeds against humanity and also blames him of being “psychotic”.

Dawkins frustrations are caused with the theory of intelligent design and a host of other related issues, he throws an avalanche of hard evidence to bolster his case, Dawkins is a fascinating literary character that’s out to slay old stories and non scientifically backed views.

“The God Delusion” is full of strong arguments of cosmic proportions and it affects our current world view.

Lets me put it like this, if you are religious and attempted to have an argument with Dawkins you better have your facts straight.

In Dawkins book the God delusion he puts powerful arguments forward that debase and unravel any and most religious doctrines and fallacies.

Why the extreme tone? Well i think this is because the man is determined not to see young children indoctrinated with a view that is not based on facts.

Dawkings is 100% atheist and the god delusion is his testimony.

Creationists and believers in God will no doubt see him as the devil incarnate and non religious scientists will see him as being very astute and intellectual.

He has been called a fundamentalist, but his argument is as follows “given proof that i am wrong i would at once change my opinions, whereas a true fundamentalist clings to his faith whatever the challenge”

Whatever you think about this book, i think it is very important to ask questions of everything in life. The God Delusion manages to ask lots of questions so this can only be a good thing.

There is a phenomenon that has been noticed by several schools of research, yet all give the event a different title. Differing names or not, the commonalities between them lend credence to the existence of this experience. The writers of the Hindu Upanisads speak of a bandhu, and Jungian psychologists call it a synchronicity. To the rest of the mental health field it is known as a delusion of reference. This phenomenon is when an internal experience meaningfully coincides with an external event.

Carl Jung noticed and wrote of this highly implausible coincidence as a synchronicity, or an acausal connecting principle. This means that the usual linear causality of every day life is bypassed as two events meaningfully coincide regardless of a separation in time and/or space. These two events are an intrapsychic cognition and a material manifestation. Dreams, meditations, psychedelic experiences, near-death experiences, routine thoughts, and more find an external representation in the physical environment during synchronicities.

Because these events are beyond statistical probability, anyone narrating such an experience would be considered a victim of psychotic misinterpretation and the experience would be considered a symptom of mental disease by members of the traditional mental health field. When unrelated things of the external world seem to carry a personal significance to an individual, this is called a delusion of reference. The government may have run special headlines in the newspaper, or god arranged for a certain song to play at the right time to speak directly to the individual. In this view, the mind is simply exercising a cognitive bias in finding meanings and drawing connections where there are none.

For the early Upanisadic thinkers, this experience was not a random mishap of reality, but was a cosmic connection between the personal atman and the universal brahman, because those two are actually identical. Ritual and karma could be internalized, thus facilitating this experience and subjective proof of the truth of moksha. This experience of acausal connection is called a bandhu and has been discussed metaphorically in the earliest writings of Vedism, including the creation stories of the Rg Veda featuring the adamic being Purusha, and the comparison of man, his atman, and his senses with the horse, chariot, and driver.

While some Hindus may attribute this experience to the control of a celestial being, Jung began to seek answers within the frontiers of science, particularly in quantum physics. Again the answers are unsatisfactory and subjectively interpretable. The mental health field cuts the tie between intrapsychic and external by rendering the experience a completely internal delusion.

Perhaps a more fruitful rumination is not on the question of how, but of why. By definition the experience is meaningful and beyond the purposeful creation by human powers due to the statistical improbability and seemingly controlled arrangement of reality. If it was purely a physical phenomenon, it would be easy to speak of unknown universal laws, but because they involve the consciousness of man, it tends to summon questions of purpose. Are synchronicities beacons, lighting the path? Are bandhus sign posts along this path, marking distance? What path? The experience is not only noticed but mainly reported only by those exploring the transpersonal aspects of consciousness. This may lend insight into an answer to be determined by each individual thinker.

Marx said religion is opium, Dawkins (“The God Delusion (TGD)” )argued that God is a delusion. The debate on TGD has been very heated, to get some idea, read The Huffington Post for a summary of Dawkins’ position and about 580 comments running across 24 pages.

Most discussions are related to Christianity, what about Buddhism?

Buddhism is regarded as Pantheistic, and sometimes agnostic, so the clash with Dawkins is not expected to be as sharp.

First thing to note, however, is that there are many schools of Buddhism, with very different views about God.

Theravada (or doctrine of the Elders) is definitely agnostic, and refuses to go into intellectual arguments about things not here and now. It focuses on the purification of the mind, which if achieved, could provide answers to the difficult questions. Discussing it now when our minds are full of mind viruses is futile.

It is told that the historical Buddha, an ordinary person, said that he can only point the way, everybody needs to tread their own paths.

This is different from Stephen Jay Gould’s ‘NOMA’ – ‘non-overlapping magisteria’. Gould claimed that science and true religion never come into conflict because they exist in completely separate dimensions of discourse.

Other schools of Buddhism believe in certain Gods and Goddesses, such as bodhisattvas, who have vowed to help all sentient being to be liberated. Such boddhisattvas are worshipped for their superpowers. These schools would be at loggerheads with Dawkins.

Other schools believe in Buddha-nature, or in Sunyata (Emptiness), which is some kind of Pantheism, similar to what Spinoza and Einstein believed.

“Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.” Albert Einstein

Is Buddhism a meme?

Going further to Dawkins earlier work “The Selfish Gene”, where he introduced the term meme as a unit of cultural transmission, we may ask if Buddhism is a meme. Dawkins said that religions or religious practices and rituals are complexes of memes or memplexes. Some of the Buddhist rituals are definitely memes, but it is interesting to hear Susan Blackmore, the author of “The Meme Machine” about meditation:

“if a meditational system such as Buddhism is a meme, then it is actually a very peculiar one – a meme-clearing meme.”

Meditation is a tool to be aware of the viruses in our mind, including religions.

The self delusion Finally, the central tenet of Buddhism is the no self doctrine: no self, no soul, no reincarnation. It regards the Self Delusion as a much serious problem than the God delusion. I wonder if Dawkins would regard self as a delusion.

Robert Maynard Pirsig, an American writer and philosopher, says “when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion”.

The Oxford dictionary defines the word delusion as “an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder”. Does that mean the people who believe in the existence of the God almighty are all suffering from delusions? Well, it is a difficult question to answer. However, it is extremely difficult to prove the existence of God. The clergymen, who are the middlemen between the God and the humans, keep saying that God is very much existent, but to be able to perceive his presence one needs to be spiritually enlightened. And, people like me keep feeling that may be I’m not spiritually enlightened enough to see him and that is why he is invisible to me.

People often slip into mass hysteria after they hear rumors that certain idol started drinking milk or shedding tears. Religion and rationality are poles apart, and if you want to be a believer you need to blindly follow what the clergy says. You can question them only at the risk of being branded as a heretic. In religions such as Islam you can’t even question the existence of God, and if you muster up enough courage to do it, you will immediately be branded as a ‘Kafir’ and will be accused of indulging in blasphemy. And, in many Islamic theocracies blasphemy is punishable by death.

Every religion promotes its own God and the pagan faiths such as Hinduism offer a new God to the humankind on a daily basis by deifying even humans as Gods. So there is no clarity as far as who the real god is and who is fake.

The scriptural literature is full of ludicrously unscientific things such as God created this universe in six days and on the seventh day he took rest, whereas the evolutionists say that this universe took some millenniums to evolve to this present stage and the evolutionary process is a constant and continuous thing. Another religion says that its prophet flew to heaven on the back of a winged horse. The scriptural literature of the pagan faiths such as Hinduism is full of myths, which are incredulous but passed off as truths.

The puzzling thing is even the people who gained mastery over science set aside their scientific temper and keep visiting shrines. What drives humans towards religion and God is a difficult question to answer. However, one of the reasons could be that humans, by nature, feel intensely insecure. As they grow old and near the death their feelings of insecurity only get intensified and they start searching for a redeemer. And exactly at that moment the clergy comes into the picture and exploits the situation to tighten its grip on the society.

There are many who say that religion actually played a great role in infusing morality among the humans. Really? The Vatican Bank, which is considered to be the custodian of God’s money has often been the center of corruption. The Catholic clergy are often embroiled in pedophilia allegations and the Pope is finding it difficult to purge the church of pedophilia and sodomy. The Muslim religious organizations, which are fighting for the restoration of ‘purity’ in Islam, often run their affairs on counterfeit currency and drug peddling and even selling women as sex slaves. The black money stashers in India are notorious for dumping wads of currency into temple ‘hundis’ to attract God’s attention in the expectation that he would forgive their sins and give them ‘moksha’. So one of the cornerstones of the religion business, which is mostly run by the clergy, is to exploit the innate human propensity to ‘sin’ and accumulate money. There are some people who say that religion plays a role in establishing peace on the earth. This argument also sounds feeble if we look back into the history of crusades, the holocaust, discrimination against Dalits and apartheid. And even today, in this technologically advanced 21st century, religion inspired terror, especially the Islamist terror, is playing havoc with human lives.

Can a human lead a morally upright and peaceful life even without following any of the organized or pagan faiths? The answer is yes. Richard Dawkins, the well-known evolutionary biologist, states that morality does not originate from the Bible, rather our moral progress informs what part of the Bible Christians accept and what they now dismiss. He also argues that there is a moral Zeitgeist that continually evolves in society, generally progressing toward liberalism. He is right. Yesterday’s morality may be considered immoral today and today’s moral things may cease to be so tomorrow.