STRAW INTO GOLD: HYPNOTIC ALCHEMY

Inside this clay jar there are meadows and groves

and the One who made them.

Inside this jar there are seven oceans and innumerable stars,

acid to test gold,

and a patient appraiser of jewels.

Inside this jar the music of eternity,

and a spring flows from the source of all waters.

Kabir says: Listen, friend! My beloved Master lives inside.

~Kabir

The alchemists of antiquity were known for their search for the Philosopher’s Stone, one grain of which could change base materials into gold.
In the field of hypnotherapy, we engage in the same process internally. We are looking for the Philosopher’s Stone: the qualities, the presence, that allows the base materials of our inner world- limiting ideas that we developed in childhood, old hurts and wounds, our darker impulses- to be transformed, transmuted, and integrated.
And What Is The Hypnotic Philosopher’s Stone?
Breath – Our breath is highly mutable, and changes with our state. The state changes our breath, and also, by changing our breath we can change our state. When we breathe more deeply, our awareness deepens, becoming more stable and easeful. When we guide the breath through the body, it releases the tensions and tightness that develop when we’re out of contact with our deeper selves. The breath can be like water, flowing through and releasing, softening the muscles and held-in emotion. It can be like fire, bringing energy and aliveness to our being. It can connect us with earth, grounding and safe. And, breath can lighten us like air, supporting us in expanding, releasing, opening to new possibilities and experiences.
Relationship – Stephen Gilligan says that, in order to discover the solution that lies at the core of a problem, it must be named and blessed by human presence. As hypnotherapists, we come to each session centered, open, and available to support and hold the crucible-the alchemical container- a deepening sense of self beneath and beyond the usual waking identity- in which a wise, compassionate way of relating to a problem occurs and transformation can happen. Even when our clients can’t yet name and bless what they’re experiencing, we are there, acknowledging and holding all aspects, shadow and light source both.
Deepening – When the mind ceases its judging, controlling, and planning, and remembers its capacity to discern, it’s wisdom and clarity, it’s connection to body and heart, then something else emerges- connection with something beneath and beyond our usual ways of thinking and knowing. Another definition for hypnotic trance is “the process of deepening and connecting with our essence.” We discover what Kabir knew so intimately- that within us are “…meadows and groves, and… the music of eternity”.
When all three are present, the breath that we follow into our inner depths, the alchemical relationship that provides the container in which the deep work can be done, and the pathways that open into a field of possibility that the usual daily mind set doesn’t notice, we have the capacity that the old alchemists were searching for-the ability to turn straw into gold.