The Science of Deep Trance Meditation (cont'd.)

iii The Master Mind

For many years, among practicing psychologists and psychiatrists, there were anecdotal stories circulating about attempts to "integrate" patients with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) going "peculiarly" awry. The gossip was that, every now and again, during personality reintegration, a dominant or master personality would emerge under hypnosis, which seemed to not only be fully aware of all the other personality fragments - itself unusual - but also seemed to be aware of the doctor, the doctor's own family, the doctor's personal friends, and, generally, a veritable encyclopedia of information it should not have had access to in the first place, under any conditions.

Sound familiar? Practising physician Dr Ralph B Allison, MD, even gave a name to this phenomeon - "the Inner Self Helper," or, alternatively, the "Multiple Mind" or the "Master Mind" - and wrote a book about it [Allison, Dr Ralph B, Minds in Many Pieces, CIE Publishing, 1998]. Surely, even to the casual reader, what Dr Allison found sounds suspiciously like a precursor to the DTM phenomena of Edgar Cayce and Douglas Cottrell!

And finally - the most difficult thesis of them all - and the one almost completely lacking in objective proof - there is the notion of "cellular intelligence" (i.e. an awareness and push toward capital-L "life" within each of our cells). Douglas the person, not the trance reader, has said of his own work on more than one occasion, "It's as though the body really wants to get rid of [the disease] and all it needs is a little push." In the opinion of this writer, cellular intelligence, notwithstanding that we have no proof here - totally anyway - may well turn out to be the "missing link" in all this. Science gives little credit to the so-called "autonomic" nervous system, other than to suggest that it can keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing without conscious effort. But could there be more?

The metaphysical literature is rife with anecdotal stories of people who were "warned" of potential health problems in dreams, and thereby given the opportunity to prepare for the coming crisis. Warned by whom? Where did the messages originate?

In 1991, Irish-born electrical engineer Michael Sheridan had a series of peculiar experiences which caused him to devote the rest of his life to exploring purely spiritual themes. He founded the Aisling Dream Institute in Dublin, and continues, to this day; his mission to show people how understanding their dreams can change their lives. On the subject of warnings in dreams, Sheridan is very clear, "When we ignore aspects of our functioning, our dreams will redress the balance by giving "symbolic" expression to these aspects, while at the same time attempting to give healing for the "conditions" which cause us to ignore these aspects in the first place."

Pursuing this premise to its logical conclusion, we can envision an invisible intelligence within each of us that monitors various conditions and attempts to repair them. Sometimes, it simply can't - and asks us for our help - usually in a dream, a sudden insight, or perhaps a "hunch." But, compared to what Douglas does in the DTM, that is a flawed communication. When Douglas "reads" someone in the DTM, it is more than possible he is plugging directly into that invisible and benevolent intelligence, and working with it to solve the problem.

And there is even more evidence, albeit equally circumstantial. Today, one of the hottest new "holistic" practices is known as Kinesiology. Kinesiology was originally developed by Dr George Goodheart, a chiropractor, in the early 1960s. He discovered the relationship between Chinese meridians (also used by practitioners of Chinese medicine, including acupunturists) and muscle groups, glands, and organs in the body. By testing the resistance of a muscle, when a small amount of pressure is applied to it, weaknesses and imbalances in its corresponding meridian could be discerned. To say that this technique is "popular" would be an understatement. There are currently practitioners in every corner of the globe serving millions of patients. Even MDs are involved. The science of Kinesiology is currently taught as a full-credit course in dozens of North American universities. However, the term "Kinesiology" is not standardized from practitioner to practitioner. While some practice the more mundane forms, many are experimenting with a more esoteric practice, whereby potentially inhibiting foods, gems, metals, or other items are placed in the hand of the patient to determine if muscle groups weaken on contact. If they do, patients are advised to avoid the item, or foodstuff, in the future. Nowhere, however, in the literature on the topic, is there much of an explanation for this aspect of the doctrine. If pressed, practitioners suggest that the "subconscious" of the patient has made contact with the item and has reacted to it. Sound familiar?

This is, of course, a significantly cruder version of what Douglas does, and is most obviously comparable to Douglas's ability to give chapter and verse on the good/bad effects of a vitamin or medicine when held in the hand of a person being "read." [The late Brenda Carlin, wife of the famous comedian George Carlin, once flew to Canada for a private session with Douglas. In the course of her reading, she held in her hand a new and experimental drug she had recently been prescribed, and asked Douglas to, first, "locate" it, and then to list the positive and negative effects it was having on her body. After listing the positive effects, Douglas said one of the negatives was that it was constricting small arteries, reducing blood flow to the limbs, and making Brenda feel cold. At this point in the session, Brenda jumped out of her chair and said that, on the plane from LA, she had asked for a blanket for the first time ever, and had been feeling cold since she had started to take the medication!]

And the explanation in both instances has to be - must be - the same. A distinct and present intelligence at the cell level of the host, capable of being "contacted." There is simply no other answer that will pass muster. Where does all this lead? And can we form a working hypothesis on the functioning of the DTM from all this?

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