Subconscious Mind or Higher Self?

If hypnosis is extremely powerful and therapeutic in the most varied healing scenarios it is because it allows us to get into direct contact with our subconscious mind. The idea we have of the Subconscious has evolved greatly since Freud “discovered” it in the second half of the 19th century. Probably the most famous literary example that illustrates the early idea we had of it is The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. In this story the Subconscious, personified by the murderous Mr Hyde, is portrayed as a sort of aggressive, criminal, brutish ape (if you remember, the first sign of Dr Jekyll changing into Mr Hyde was always the growth of monkey-like hair/fur). Now, nearly 150 years later, we have come a long way from that image and we have learnt that: apes are not brutish at all, but instead have very sophisticated minds, experience complex feelings like us and are capable of great kindness and tenderness towards their little ones. This is true for gorillas too, the apes who have more commonly been used to represent the brutish, primeval instincts of the human species, identified with the Subconscious. The reality is very different: gorillas are – unlike their human cousins – very peaceful creatures who avoid conflict whenever they can. The image of the Subconscious has also changed greatly and it is now shifting at an increased speed from a brutish, elementary form of intelligence to a very sophisticated one, with an infinitely wider breadth of knowledge, wisdom and understanding than our highly limited, detail-centred conscious mind. More and more experts in the field have started to think that our mind is probably not composed of three elements (Subconscious, Conscious and Super-Conscious or Higher Self), but of two: Conscious and “Non-Conscious”, where the Non-Conscious includes both the Subconscious and the Higher-Self, which have now started to be recognised as one and the same.

This idea is not recent anyway, since it germinated from the concept of the Collective Subconscious formulated a century ago by Carl Gustav Jung, who laid the first stepping stone in this direction. Since its first formulation a lot of work has been carried out in this field and today those of us who are familiar with working with the subconscious mind know very well how intelligent, sensitive and wise the Subconscious is. Its sense of humour in particular never ceases to amaze me, together with its wisdom and gentle care in its continuous attempt to protect us from discomfort and suffering. Unlike the case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, our Subconscious is our best friend and protector, only too eager to please us and grant us what we ask. This is why we have to be very careful about what we actually ask for, and we need to make sure that our demands are formulated properly so as not to risk ending up with something very different from our expectations. It is now clear that, during our incarnation, while our spirit is trapped in a material body, the Subconscious is our portal to the Spiritual World and to a wisdom and power that we cannot even fathom, let alone dream of mastering in our conscious state. Hypnosis is the fastest, surest way to bring the Subconscious to the forefront so that we can work with it to solve our problems and have answers to our questions. © Renata Bartoli 2009