I am from the land of Bridey Murphy and Ted Serios. My wife and I live in a 30-room, 5-fireplace, English Tudor, 48-year old dwelling (in Denver) that has poltergeist phenomena recurring regularly and irregularly. My wife is a graphologist and a psychic sensitive. She helps me in my work with hypnosis and behavior problems by giving advance knowledge of the problem through grapho-analytic and spiritual sensitivity work. We function together as a team.
Twenty-one years ago, while a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, I became interested in animal behavior, particularly the instinctual know-how capabilities of lower animals in relation to the highest of all animals, Homo sapiens. When I became a hypnotist I discovered that the theory that humans are non-instinctual was wrong. By exploring the sub-conscious mind I found things of which I had not been aware, one of which is instinct. So I came up with a simple theory based upon the fact that the inner portion of the human brain looks anatomically like the total brain of the lower animal and is called the animal brain.
This inner portion of the human brain which resembles the total brain of the lower animal functions like the brain of the lower animal. We have, at the subconscious level, an instinctual capability every bit as capable as the lower animals. Every one of us has a carry-over from the evolutionary process of becoming a more complex animal, and we have not lost the abilities of the less complex.
Theoretically, to me, the subconscious mind is representative of many things, one of which is that in the animalistic carry over from the evolutionary physical process of becoming a human being we have retained at the subconscious level the capabilities of the instinctual behavior of the lower animals. How can this be proved?
In the first place, fifty percent of the brain is the cortex which houses the functions of reason, logic, and abstract thinking, recent memory and so forth. This is more highly developed than in any other animal. In neuro-physical work done with dolphins it was discovered that dolphins share with us the fifty percent mass of brain cortex comparable to humans; and they are, in my opinion, far more advanced than we are in practically every way. Dolphins can verbalize at a higher and faster rate. Further, they talk at such a high frequency and so rapidly that it was only discovered accidentally in the laboratory when the tape recorder was played back at the wrong speed that the older dolphin was actually gossiping [15] about the humans to the younger dolphins! Dolphins are so much more intelligent that it is easier for them to learn English than it is for the English to learn Dolphinese. It is noted that the high frequency of speaking and rapidity of thinking employed by dolphins would necessitate an altered state of conscious awareness in humans if the humans were to emulate the dolphins. The dolphins utilize extra-sensory perception in their daily lives. This is factual; experiments have born it out.
LET GEORGE DO IT
Dolphins are more spiritually developed than humans. They actually love one another! They don't hurt one another, and they have been known to rescue shipwrecked sailors. Why are the dolphins more advanced than we are? Could it be because water occupied the planet Earth before land did?
For speedy purposes let us call the subconscious, animalistic, carried over, evolved aspect of the lower animal, "George". Let George do it! If we can learn to utilize the subconscious level of our minds we will improve in many ways and be able to adjust to the stress of everyday living with more serenity than if we were incapable of using our subconscious George.
In order to get to George, though, we have a problem. There is that thick cortex which in the involvement of electromagnetic nerve synapses places the subconscious mind truly below the level of consciousness. How can we penetrate the conscious mind to get to the subconscious? There are methods of consciousness expansion. There are a certain number of people who don't have to do any of this expanding. They have been born with the gift for reaching their subconscious minds -- the capability of functioning on a subconscious level consciously. This is a wonderful gift. The same percentage of the public is capable of going into a good deep hypnotic trance.
We cannot get away from religion in the field of parapsychology because when we open the trap door from the conscious mind exposing effects from the subconscious, we find something inescapable. We find that we are dealing not only with animalistic aspects of perception, but also we are dealing with what to me is termed the non-corporeal, total, personal agent, the soul, the YOU that pre-existed before this body, and will exist after your body goes back from whence it came. You will still be you. We find from our studies the inescapable reality of this part of human existence which I feel is spiritual rather than physical.
One reason I feel this to be true is the lack of need for oxygen. We find that George functions better without oxygen, whereas the conscious mind needs oxygen. We find the lack of need of rest. The subconscious awareness and its perceptions continue constantly day and night. I know of no other bodily functions like nerve or muscle that can function continuously without rest. The conscious mind, being bodily in its nature, must go to sleep and rest in order to function, but your George functions days and nights. The [16] sporadic, spontaneous extra-sensory perception coming from that level is in the same frequency as in the waking stages as in the sleeping stages, thus confirming that this is a spiritual aspect we are dealing with, not a bodily one.
"ALL HYPNOSIS IS SELF-HYPNOSIS"
I was one of the first doctors to use hypnosis, not only in the field of natural childbirth, but also in the fields of frigidity, menstrual cramps, migraine headaches, spastic colons, marital problems. I am a marriage counselor and I use hypnosis regularly. Hypnosis is an oversimplified definition of the consciousness of your subconscious. I believe that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. As a hypnotist I don't do something to someone, I teach individuals how to do things to themselves through self-alteration of conscious awareness. Medical hypnosis is another tool that we are now sharpening.
The psychedelic drugs, handled intelligently and wisely, can be utilized in many wonderful ways. They can help the intractable schizophrenic who has not been cured on a couch. They can also be used to aid intractable alcoholics. Alcoholism is a personality disorder rather than a drug addiction. We are also giving these drugs to people who are dying inevitably, and we find with all three classes -- the schizos, the alcoholics, and the dying -- that there is a common effect: religious conversion! They commune with God. Through that communion they find peace, serenity, and purpose in living, and a method of renewed self-esteem by which they can straighten out the stresses in life.
So today in the field of psychotherapy we are utilizing religious conversion as a therapeutic tool, and finding it a most useful tool. We are finding that schizophrenics no longer need to escape to their little fantasy world. They can face reality when they have the awareness that comes through spiritual convictions, through consciousness expansion. We find the same thing with alcoholics, a new purpose, a knowledge that they were put on this planet in this physical body for a reason, and they should be fulfilling that reason. We find that people who died under morphine, out of their minds from medication, can die with dignity now. In fact, they get what one of them called "a preview of coming attractions"! They look on death as heavenly birth instead of earthly death. I think we are getting somewhere in the field of medicine when we incorporate consciousness-expanding drugs.
THE VALUE OF ABSOLUTE SILENCE
There are many other methods of expanding the consciousness. Silence will do it. Absolute silence. Loss of sensory perception. Underneath the conscious mind is an unexplored realm of a beautiful wilderness, unknown, yet with some wonderful aspects that are very practical in everyday life. If my pet theory is right, your George should function like the brain of the lower animals as well as look like it. Bears can hibernate in winter. Can you do that? [17] If we could tap your subconscious mind could we teach you as a human to hibernate? Should we? Can you think of any reason why we should hibernate?
ALTERED AWARENESS FOR SPACE TRAVEL
In outer space travel it takes nine months to go by the fastest rocket to the closest planet. The bear stays for nine months in a small enclosure and doesn't get restless. Could we train our astronauts through self-hypnosis to alter their awareness to the point where they could achieve suspension or animation, a temporary condition wherein their metabolism is decreased, their heart beats more slowly, their circulation is down, and they don't need as much oxygen? Knowledge of outer space travel is going to depend upon the knowledge of inner space.
In the area of subliminal visual perception, my pet theory says that your George is an instinctual animal and should be capable of functioning like an instinctual animal. We notice that animals in the woods, predators, have rapid perception of all senses for purposes of life saving. But the civilised, super-developed, conscious minded humans have ponderously slow perception -- slow perception of the civilized animal, rapid perception of the predatory animal.
Our conscious, slow perception of motion pictures causes the illusion of moving pictures. Actually moving pictures do not move. They are intermittent, jerky, still pictures. But we have reason to believe that the dog, the cat, the horse, and other animals see jerky, intermittent, still pictures. And so does your George. The sign EAT MORE POPCORN, inserted in movies, flicks by so fast that the conscious mind cannot see it. But George can. Subliminal advertising was incorporated into motion pictures for a full year on certain nights. The results showed a significant increase in popcorn sales on the nights when the sign was spliced into the film. When people were asked why they were eating so much popcorn, their response indicated what is known as "conscious cover-up". The conscious mind covered up the subconscious perceptions welling up without recognition.
Some of the popcorn eaters were asked to come and participate in a parapsychology test to be given a few days later. The ones who showed up for this test were hypnotized and their "unconsciousness" re-run back to the time of the movie. They were asked the same question, "Why are you eating so much popcorn?" They explained it was the sign constantly coming on the movie screen that urged them to do it. Laws have been enacted to protect the public against subliminal advertising. (True, but are they enforced? RHC.)
In this country education is being seriously hampered by a persistent refusal on the part of Boards of Education to study the subconscious mind. The study of hypnosis was practically forbidden in this country until fairly recently. Russia has not been handicapped that way. (That is, not since the Russian Orthodox Catholic [18] was destroyed by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Priesthoods, East and West have always reserved the study of psychology and the practice of hypnosis for themselves -- Mental Monopoly to keep the public hypnotized and under control. Dr. Bradley probably knows this but is too polite to say it. RHC.)
THE MATHEMATICAL CONCEPT OF GOD
Russia has been studying psychology for years and is miles ahead of us in many respects. The cyberneticians, the mathematical geniuses of Russia, have arrived by actual mathematical formulae at a concept of a Supreme Being. They found that their probability curve did not fit the dynamics of human behavior, which indicated that "Somebody is running the show!" and that Somebody has a beneficent attitude toward humans. In other words, the high scientists of Russia who made that Sputnik found by actual calculation evidence of a Supreme Being. They found faith in a new spiritual awakening among the mathematicians of Russia.
We send our boys off to war, educated in institutions of higher learning, who don't even know they have a subconscious level of awareness. Think what the next dictator can do if humans don't know they have subconscious minds! It is important that we know how the brain functions in relation to living on this planet.
Subliminal perception is auditory as well as visual. Your dog is a good watchdog. He barks. He heard something that you didn't hear consciously. Can you hear things subconsciously? You can! Today we are utilizing subliminal auditory teaching, playing tape recordings to people under anesthesia. An anesthetized patient hears what is said even though he or she is unconscious. Paratroopers can be trained to learn their vocabulary faster through sleep teaching. They don't know it on the conscious level when they awaken in the morning. But when they study the vocabulary that was played to them at night via tape recorder they learn it in a shorter time.
Patients under anesthesia can benefit psychosomatically through tape recorded suggestions while they are asleep. Two groups of people who had had their stomachs removed were tested while they were under anesthesia. One group was given subliminal auditory constructive suggestions for rapid healing. The other group was given nothing. Results showed startling improvements in recovery for the group to which the suggestions were made. We have only begun to tap this wonderful aspect of human existence -- the power of mind over body. The mind should always relate to the body in beneficial ways.
Turning to the area of tactile sensations, we find the sense organ of the skin to be the largest and most important sense organ of the body. The skin carries with it a subconscious or subliminal tactile perception that is utterly marvelous. This is the means by which blind people can sense danger. Tactile perceptions of a baby and its mother sharpens the subconscious and extra-sensory perceptual awareness. With breast-fed babies, skin-to-skin contact is as [19] important as the nutrition. From this skin-to-skin manifestation of love comes the deepening of the interpersonal relationship between a baby and its mother. Sleep-test studies, done on babies and mothers reveal that breast-fed babies have the same emotional content to their dreams, the identical sleep patterns. When the mother is upset, the baby is upset. When the mother is serene, the baby is serene. Bottle-fed babies dream differently, as if they were strangers. These, we believe, are objective measurements of subjective hypotheses.
THE SUPERSENSORY RANGE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS
Olfactory-gustatory sensations have a place on the subconscious level. We do know that your George can taste and smell. Evidence of spiritual mediumship contact with surviving Georges reveals that the soul no longer handicapped by the body has a far greater range of smells and fragrances in a greater spectrum, as well as taste.
In the field of memory, all animals have a prodigious long-term memory. In your subconscious George is a perfect electro-magnetic tape recorder that has recorded every experience that ever happened to you, and is capable of being re-played when set at the proper time. The conscious mind has a short-term memory. What effect does a long-term memory have on you as an individual? You are a mosaic of all your past experiences. You are a conglomeration of what has been. Everything you are today depends on what you have been. Utilizing new aspects of awareness that we never utilized before in treating patients by psychoanalysis helps to make weak people strong, guilty people responsible, and teaches individuals how to better themselves. This is what God put that subconscious mind there for!
(Dr. Bradley practices Obstetrics and Gynecology in Denver, Colorado. He has appeared on many, many radio and TV interview programs. He and his wife have written a book, "Psychic Phenomena: Revelations and Experiences", $6.95 at bookstores. This contains authenticated cases from their files of over 28 years of psychic research: floating objects (telekinesis), power of prayer on plants, telepathy, prophetic dreams, life after death and reincarnation.)
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"REST FROM THE GRUELING TOIL OF PHYSICAL LIFE"
"Man comes out of the great Cosmic Mind and returns to the great Cosmic Mind. Were it not for the fearful thing you call death, man could never come into his own. To live in the physical body forever would be truly a hell. God has so designed man that he may go away for a time and rest from the gruelling toil of physical life, so that when he returns he will he fresh and new.
"The church of today, and always, as far as I know anything about, sidestepped deliberately the issue of reincarnation. I did the same -- not so much that I did not wish to believe it, but more that I actually did not know the truth . . ." Professor Luntz at a Probert seance, March 7, 1948, BSRA No. 8-C, 91 pages, $1.50
References
- Bradley, Dorothy B, and Robert A. Bradley. Psychic Phenomena; Revelations and Experiences. West Nyack, N.Y: Parker Pub. Co, 1967. Print. <http://amzn.to/1myqSzY> [Re-edition, 1968: <http://amzn.to/1kSHl74>]