SPECIAL NEWSLETTER FROM HEALING DIMENSIONS, ACC
By Brent M. Baum, STB, SSL, CADC, LISAC, CCH	(December, 2001)
The following “newsletter,” composed in two parts, holds reflections arising out of urgent need and in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th and was intended to offer hope and facilitate coping with the various triggers emergent in the aftermath of these events. This unparalleled tragedy impacted us personally and collectively in ways that mandate an updated understanding of trauma and its influence on the psyche. The invitation to embrace the new healing paradigm is imminent with the expanding repercussions of these events and the degree of societal and psycho-spiritual dissociation they reveal. New strategies arise under such duress and afford us opportunities for personal and societal transformation.

PART 2: "SAFETY IS FIRST CREATED WITHIN ONESELF”

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Visitors:

In September I provided a newsletter that has received significant exposure and has helped many people cope with the traumatic events that have occurred and the new ones still occurring. At this time, it seems appropriate to continue the previous reflections and add the natural “sequitur” so as to enable us to make some additional adjustments to better anchor and secure our everyday lives. I extend to you a warm welcome during this period of transition in our lives.

As we move through the holiday season, we pause to give thanks for the many gifts we possess as Americans and as a nation founded on spiritual principles. We move into an era of greater appreciation for that which has not been challenged until now. Our renewed commitment to the principles of freedom, democracy, and spiritual integrity emerge from the challenges of fear and the unanticipated violence and aggression of recent times. We rise to meet the spiritual, ethical, and emotional challenges of these events. Challenges such as these forge a strength and commitment to resolve the breaches in consciousness that admit such violent intrusions. It is about this that we will continue speaking below.

In the September Newsletter I addressed the following concerns:

1. The Likelihood Of Personal Trauma (PTSD) Encoding.
2. Difficulty Focusing And Concentrating In Present Time Due To The Intensity Of The Trance.
3. Fluctuations Between Feelings Of Fear And Powerlessness, And Feelings Of Outrage And Anger.
4. The Impact Of Collective Trance Induction.
5. Do Not Underestimate The Impact Of The Archetypal Features Of The Recent Trauma Events.
6. Attend To The Impact Of The Increased Stress On Your Bodymind.
7. But How Could This Happen? Identifying The Collective Subconscious Blind Spot.
8. Strategies And Recommendations:
1. Renewed Commitment to Personal Self-Care.
2. Renewed Commitment to Service of Others and the Values of Freedom.

At this time I would like to share some additional reflections that have assisted me in coping with the recent turn of events.

9. True Safety is Found Within the Self.
10. We Attract To Ourselves That Which We Hold Within.
11. The Subconscious Mind is the "Long-Distance Carrier" Through Which Our Creative Intention is Borne to Manifestation.
12. The Healing of the "Inner Mind" is the Key to Personal and Societal Transformation.
13. In Coping With Traumatic Events, Neither Excessive Dissociation (Fearful Withdrawal), Nor Excessive Force (Response in Rage to Rage) Serve as Solutions. A Balance Exercise of Power is Required.
14. In the Treatment of Trauma, the Abusive Behaviors Resulting from Untreated Trauma Must First Be Addressed, Contained.
15. We Must Take Into Account the "Big Picture" to Make Sense of Current Events and to Implement Appropriate Strategies.
16. A New Paradigm of Consciousness Will Emerge From These Events -- A Healing Paradigm That Takes Into Account the Power of Thoughts and Beliefs and Their Power to Transform the World.

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9. TRUE SAFETY IS FOUND WITHIN THE SELF.

Terrorism preys upon our trauma histories and previous insecurities. If we have been traumatized in our past, the unresolved “triggers” of our past will be activated by intense sensory images that resonate with our trauma history. While the events of late have a “natural horror” to them, the capacity to deal with them will be directly proportionate to our capacity to remain focused and address them in their own right. If we have a history of trauma that is additionally triggered by these events or resonates with them, we will experience an “amplification” and “intensification” of pain and distress proportionate to the extent of our “pre-recorded” traumas. This same phenomenon is familiar to us in the example of one who has a “temper.” By this we mean that the anger, rage already stored from the past is easily accessible through lesser “trigger events” which, through sympathetic resonance, manage to catch the whole of the anger and direct it abusively at a lesser event in present time. The response can be very abusive when all of our past anger is directed at a current event. We must discern the difference between that which is current and the “unfinished business” of our past that is aggravating an already violent or painful set of circumstances. Those who feel incomplete with the perpetrations of violence in their past will be “pushed” into a higher state of anxiety, depression, and distress when an additional burden is laid upon them. Limiting exposure to the intensely violent images of recent events will prove helpful to slow the impact of the trigger events of late.

The deliberate targeting of the primary archetypal symbols of our subconscious minds, symbols which represent physical (national) security such as the “Pentagon” (itself an ancient five-pointed symbol of absolute safety and power), the “towering” achievements of the Twin Towers and their actual position of leadership in stabilizing and anchoring the world financial markets: i.e. the stock exchange, the “White House” (historically a symbol of our ‘first family’s’ safety and honor), and the Capitol (seat of decision-making and governmental power) – all of these were not random targets, but, rather, were chosen precisely for their archetypal value in our lives. The degree of success for the terrorists will be contingent upon how deeply these archetypal symbols were anchored in your own subconscious minds, and the extent to which we were personally “triggered.” Irrespective of our prehistory with these symbolic structures, we witnessed the very definition of trauma in observing, “live,” such a violent invasion of our national boundaries. A trauma, by definition, is a boundary violation. In the subconscious mind, buildings and structures are translated as our bodies, our lives. Many of my clients whose bodies had already been invaded in the past by a perpetrator found themselves dreaming of their “homes” invaded by their perpetrators again on the night of Sept. 11th. Irrespective of your personal trauma history, if you caught the event of Sept. 11th live, you witnessed the appalling use of human life to harm others and to attack these powerful symbols of power. Traumas are always moments of powerlessness; but to see the deliberate use of human life to make such a statement was an unanticipated and unprepared-for invasion.

Paramount in importance in all of our minds is the renewed need for “safety” for ourselves, loved ones, and families. An essential invitation and lesson that emerges from these experiences is the profound truth that: True safety is found within the self.

My experience with over nine thousand trauma survivors suggests that true safety is not primarily an “external” matter at all, but an internal one. External safety flows naturally from internal balance and equilibrium. Quantum physics has taught us that we are powerful creators. All that occurs within our daily lives is the intended creation of either our conscious or subconscious minds. There is both conscious and subconscious “intentionality.” With an infinite power source deep within us, our intentions are manifest readily in our daily existence. Most of us are profoundly conditioned to create from our “habitual” or unconscious intentionality without even having to pause to think about it. Most of us create as our ancestors and our parents created. We try to improve upon the choices of previous generations and to consciously claim our intentionality, our power to manifest whole and meaningful lives and relationships – relationships of love and abundance. Trauma induction, however, which is subconscious and automatic, has instilled in us individually and as a species a “contrary” and oft opposing intentionality that has its own agenda. These trauma-induced agendas of fear, victimhood, revenge, etc. are not based on a balanced perception but are the polarities of unresolved moments of pain that still hold power.

An unresolved memory possesses a “magnetism” or polarity due to the conspicuous absence of those higher energies (love, safety, nurturing) that would have prevented them from occurring. When we freeze and store consciousness (see my book: The Healing Dimensions), we do so at a moment of duress that captures the moment with its imbalanced emotional polarity, and send this anomaly into our ninety-three percent subconscious minds for protective storage. Empowered by the immensely powerful, creative subconscious mind, these scenes of trauma radiate their incomplete signals, projecting outward the exact parameters of this void, detailing into material form that which we are lacking. In this projection process, containing less than white light, a void or dark bubble is created within the field of consciousness that will possess a magnetism and draw to itself that which matches its frequencies and parameters. Unless we secure our subconscious definition of love, for instance, we will continue to draw to ourselves those like our first definitions who may have been emotionally unavailable or abusive. This subconscious attraction compromises our “safety” from the inside. Reframe or heal the originally deficient subconscious definition of love and notice the improvement in that which you attract. True safety is found within yourself.

10. WE ATTRACT TO OURSELVES THAT WHICH WE HOLD WITHIN.

Imagine an infinite power source within you. Your subconscious mind is the filter through which the light passes. If your subconscious mind is clear and free of traumatic encodings, the light can manifest as you consciously intend, creating loving relationships, success, beauty, nurturing environments, etc. But imagine the individual traumatized in early childhood, before the age of “moral reasoning” at ages seven to eight. This child’s definition of love is compromised, and while s/he may intend to create other than s/he knew growing up, the subconscious encodings alter the beam of light on its outward projection, recreating the frightening shadow of a perpetrator or abuser locked into the subconscious mind at a moment of trauma. In spite of our best conscious intention, the subconscious filter will manifest this figure, event, until it is resolved. It is as though the infinite light gathers around the encoded image and causes the dark image to create a void in energy, becoming magnetic precisely according to the frequencies that are missing. We will draw to us individuals, accidents, circumstances precisely oriented to the missing frequencies, patterns, personalities, and emotions. That is the nature of energy systems: traumas are moments when energetic voids are created, though our creativity continues unabated. We will create at every moment of our existence; if we store “voids” from traumatic moments, these voids will be recreated unerringly. Understand that there is nothing that can occur “outside” of you, without your mind’s participation (though that is, for most of us, subconscious). Gary Zukav in The Seat of the Soul, reminded us that humankind’s predominant path of creating/evolving has been mainly subconscious from this kind of trauma-induced subconscious intentionality. “We” are the source of our safety or lack thereof. We simply attract to ourselves that which we hold within. This is our nature as co-creators, made in the image and likeness of the Source/Creator. Even the Bible, in its less scientifically oriented language announces this to us.

There is a second creative pattern, however, that I will also mention at this time. Let us remember that there are agreements that souls make in service to humanity: sometimes to depart together for purposes of global, societal, and personal healing and transformation; this was seen with TWA Flight 800 and New York City Twin-Tower reframes. These moments and decisions defy our rational understanding but become clarified in retrospect when we begin to grasp the service these souls render by their choices. This does not always occur in the immediate emotional backlash of a traumatic event, but emerges in the healing process. For instance, when I worked with the staff/family members of the TWA Flight 800 tragedy, grief work often involved inviting, visualizing, and conversing with the individual who died in the crash. The most interesting phenomenon was that not once in the visualizations did the individual ever appear alone. When visualized, each loved one appeared with the entire group behind them who had left together. The clients with whom I worked were unaware of this consistent phenomenon. Similarly, I am completely assured: a group of souls departed together, in support of each other on September 11th. There is a power and wisdom unfolding in this mystery. They are serving us in unimaginable ways.

11. THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND IS THE “LONG-DISTANCE CARRIER” THROUGH WHICH OUR CREATIVE INTENTION IS BORNE TO MANIFESTATION.

Another way to express this notion of personal creative power is that the subconscious mind is the “MCI, AT&T, Sprint,” of our creative system. The quality of our outward manifestation will only be as clear as the communication of our “carrier.” Commercials are currently portraying this dilemma quite effectively. Exactly what vacation site did you request on the phone? Our good intentions are “corrupted” by the contrary intentions of the ninety-five percent majority interest of the subconscious mind. You will only be as good at manifestation as the quality of your carrier! The relationships we create, therefore, are incredibly accurate mirrors of the messages we hold about ourselves in the subconscious mind. Some of our traumas are so subconsciously buried that they catch us off guard.

A significant consideration of this subconscious carrier dynamic is the fact that the subconscious mind does not distinguish very well between “real time” imagery and “creative visualization.” This has allowed a number of therapies to develop which can enable the release of painful memories and experiences of the past even if the person who traumatized you is no longer accessible for confrontation or healing. If the ninety-five percent subconscious mind believes the “offending party” is sitting in the chair across from you, odds are that the rest of the mind will cooperate and you will begin to relive the feelings of hurt or resentment that this individual inflicted on you. We are able to heal this way because our conscious and subconscious minds are so interactive. Gain the cooperation of the subconscious mind, and transformation of a set of circumstances is readily manifest. Similarly, create a strong enough trauma image that the subconscious cannot ignore, and the conscious mind will follow it right into fear, in spite of its “rational” reassurances of safety and calm. Terrorists seek to generate fear by corrupting our “long-distance carrier,” thereby instilling fear and self-doubt. We are learning how to effectively clear the subconscious of such intrusions and restore balance.

12. THE HEALING OF THE “INNER MIND” IS THE KEY TO PERSONAL AND SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION.

The subconscious or “inner mind” captures and stores that which we cannot consciously handle. It is the filter through which all creative intentionality passes, and its quality of congestion or clarity will very much determine the manifest form of our creative energy. After 950,000 years of continuous encoding, disassociation, and repression into the subconscious mind, it is no wonder that we are subconsciously manifesting surprising events in recent times. We can no longer afford the self-delusion that the “past” once linearly out of our minds no longer exists. William Faulkner once stated that "the past isn’t over; it isn’t even past." Time is not linear or historical to the subconscious mind. All traumas happened a mere millisecond ago in the subconscious, and these events are real, sustained as actual paused moments of consciousness. Quantum physics and Einstein suggested the same about time. Throw in the fact that the subconscious mind makes little distinction between “real images” and “creative visualization,” and we may feel a sudden desire to examine our last use of this seemingly harmless mental excursionary capacity. We might even find ourselves pausing to think about our most recent use of our imaginations: fantasy, fear, terrorism, vacation, anthrax spores around us, escape … or whatever catches our interest or fancy … or perhaps however the media captures our interest or fancy. This proves an even more interesting issue, for the media has become masterful at finding new and “entrancing” ways of capturing and riveting our attention. They will seek to attract us, inadvertently hypnotizing us, triggering us by taking the sensory stimulation one degree farther than they did last year, last month, or last week. Sensationalism has become a way of communication, and its impact on the subconscious mind is unprecedented.

Suddenly, however, it would appear that we have reached our zenith. We cannot get much more sensory stimulated than we did on September 11, 2001 without being more overtly traumatized. Suddenly, for the first time on open television, the public was warned by the Red Cross that the "recurrent viewing of the Sept. 11th events at the World Trade Center could prove harmful to the psyche." Television programs demonstrating police officers using aggressive/violent acts to subdue criminals were no longer appropriate for viewing; movies utilizing terrorism themes were, at least for the time being, shoved onto the back burner. Saturation of the inner mind has announced its arrival with a price. Terrorism is no longer a part of our personal lives only as fantasy or entertainment; it has hit home. Too close to home. It’s in the mail; it’s in the living room; it’s in the air! To the subconscious mind that was already saturated with images, the recent additions to the image inventory proved to be too much for some. Many already on the edge are now teetering; some are acting out the fears that are now overwhelming them. Look at the numbers of “hoaxes” and mimicking behaviors arriving daily. An already saturated subconscious mind is reaching overdose capacity. Announcements intended as precautionary measures are heightening anxiety levels and pushing many into acute distress.

In light of these occurrences, I would recommend a renewed commitment to the healing of the 950,000 year-old breach in human relationality that has been resurrected before us in recent events. But how do we begin such a healing process? Traumatic disassociation is not new to us. We were designed to survive through disassociation until we "grew up" to learn mastery of our states of consciousness and to look at how we throw our quantum creative power around. (Look for my new book: Living As Light). We’re looking more closely now aren’t we? The first breach in human relationality was the conscious-subconscious split that began with humankind’s earliest overwhelming experiences in its evolutionary infancy. This principal breach of self from self forms the foundation of our loss of power, focus, and safety. It results in a compromised intentionality in which we cannot agree within ourselves what we would like to create with the unlimited power that was entrusted to us. “Cleaning up our intentionality,” therefore, is the first order of business. You want personal safety? Then insure that you are not using your quantum consciousness to keep those bad memories and perpetrators on hold in your inner mind; they don’t go away when stuffed into the subconscious, they become eternally reenacted. Locking these events away: “out of sight, out of mind” does not prove effective to the all-aware subconscious mind. Imprisoning our unacceptable parts and memories does not prove effective for healing in the long-run. Wasn’t it Dostoevsky who indicated that a society’s degree of “civilization” could be determined in how it treats its prisoners? “Out of sight, out of mind” approaches only push our painful memories into the creative hands of the subconscious, making inevitable their return from our “inner mind” – our inner creator! Hence, our subconsciously paused dramas/traumas reappear as flashbacks, illnesses, accidents, or emotional outbursts. This is how your subconscious mind tells you it’s been taken hostage by a traumatic event – hypnotized into creating a pause in space-time to arrest a perpetrating event/person as your very life was threatened. Our beautiful creative power is used to pause the violence until we arrive to deal with it. Stuffing it, ignoring it, rationalizing it, intellectualizing it, or religiously forgiving it from the five percent rational mind will do little to resolve it. And when taken to the extreme, these repetitive encodings become compulsion, addiction, cult, fanaticism, and terrorism.

Moral/religious solutions are alone insufficient; in fact, the old “moral failure model” seems to be announcing its bankruptcy in the “religious guise” or justification under which the trauma has occurred. The events we are witnessing are not about “morality” or religiosity in essence. We are learning that the most well-intentioned religious system will express itself from its own global/historical frame of reference. The difficulty arises when these frames of reference are conditioned by repeated, unresolved patterns of traumatization, deprivation, and violence. We have seen Catholics killing Protestants; we are seeing Muslims killing Muslims. We are witnessing profound declarations about the state of encoded trauma and our inattentiveness to the warning signs. Hence, bigger signs are given.

The resolution must be two-fold: individual and collective. Our first commitment must be to our own personal healing process. A significant portion of this is educational, but, more importantly, strategies must be implemented which allow for the expedient resolution of traumatic imprints without retraumatizing the “victims,” thereby releasing the pressure on the “inner mind,” and allowing healing to begin. We must learn to manifest safety from within ourselves. The tools for this are already emerging among us. If, as scientists are now finding, a traumatic encoding is only a “trapped millisecond of consciousness,” then it seems reasonable that we need a millisecond of courage to reframe this consciousness and integrate its lesson. We are learning more about this healing exigency within the human bodymind; Holographic Memory Resolution® and similar body-centered psychotherapeutic reframing techniques are founded on this natural healing ability.

We must first make peace with the terrorists we sustain within ourselves as we “hold onto” our traumatic memories. Holding onto our anger, hurt, and victimization leaves us in a great position of disadvantage: polarized out of balance and unable to utilize our full power to sustain our positive intentions of love, safety, and fulfillment. Safety is complete when our subconscious mind is no longer keeping our trauma scenes in a holding pattern – an action undertaken with the impression that its job is to protect us from death and overwhelm by capturing and freezing these moments of painful consciousness. Imagine the energy lost from simply keeping one such scene with a “perpetrator” stored indefinitely in a “holding pattern” in the subconscious mind. Many of us have dozens, if not hundreds of these powerfully “paused” scenes in our inner minds. Eventually our “trauma-traffic controller” gets overwhelmed and flashbacks, triggers, and disease announce the presence of the stored energy.

I believe that safety, peace, serenity, and harmony are our natural exigency. We are destined for Eden. But we cannot disrespect the power of quantum consciousness nor ignore the energies diverted to protect us from the overwhelming moments of our history. We do not evolve gracefully with so many of our natural energies diverted. God did not abandon us of late, but we did so overload our trauma-traffic controllers that some global traumas slipped through. We have issues to address globally, but the starting point for healing is in our responsibility to examine the use of our personal quantum creativity: to utilize our remarkable personal exigency toward the healing of the inner mind.

13. IN COPING WITH TRAUMATIC EVENTS, NEITHER EXCESSIVE DISSOCIATION (FEARFUL WITHDRAWAL), NOR EXCESSIVE FORCE (RESPONSE IN RAGE TO RAGE) SERVE AS SOLUTIONS. A BALANCED EXERCISE OF POWER IS REQUIRED.

In my own life, I have noticed that when I am in a centered place, not triggered from my own history, I respond to current events neither from excessive fear nor excessive anger. My emotions remain proportionate to the cause I am facing in present time, and my decisions are appropriate and balanced. On the other hand, when a trauma memory has been triggered and I am in a place of fear, I tend to see possible threats or incursions more than the external circumstances warrant. When I make decisions from such a place, I am left, at the end of it all, with the realization that I wasted a lot of energy focused on a threat that was not entirely real: partially constructed from my mind’s ability to blur old traumas with current challenges. Such is the interfacing ability of the quantum mind. In another instance, I might be angered by a memory triggered from the past, only to find myself prone to dump the whole stored body of anger on the current target, who does not realize that his/her insensitive comment is about to invite the wrath of eons to visit her and reduce her to a smoldering heap. In reality, I rarely act disproportionately any more, generally catching my triggers much sooner and backtracking to the cause before I introject my old stored anger into a current scene.

As I mentioned in my first newsletter after the Sept. 11th events, we may find ourselves experiencing “fluctuations between feelings of fear and powerlessness, and feelings of outrage and anger” (Item 3 in Sept. Newsletter). Traumatic events result in a disassociation that leaves us with two stored components: a fearful self that felt powerless to stop an overwhelming circumstance or event, and an angry/frustrated self that was not safe enough at the time to utilize his/her inner power to prevent the trauma from occurring. It is most commonly the “wounded” younger self that is trapped with the fear/victimization feeling, and the adult “survivor” self that inherits the anger (often, the “I’m entitled to retribution” feeling).

The truth remains that I have not encountered anyone on Earth thus far who is immune to the encoding of trauma in his/her body. As such, we all possess some imbalances in energy, resulting in polarities toward excessive fear or aggression, depending on the memories triggered. The risk at the current time is in the decision-making process. Fortunately our government has many voices and “checks and balances” to oversee the exercise of power and force. The average person experiences between fifteen to fifty trance states an hour. Many of these are positive images, thoughts, or fantasies about daily events and possibilities. We survive with this capacity to image positive events and future outcomes. On the other hand, our trauma histories leave us vulnerable to access images, events, and experiences from our past that pull us into the aforementioned polarities. It is important that we recognize our current vulnerability to polarization from our personal trauma histories and seek to remain fully present to the circumstances of current events. We must carefully observe our leaders and monitor the decision-making process, aware that we are all capable of excessive response or aggression when our “personal triggers” have been activated. The “Hitlers” of our past were those charismatic leaders who acted from their unresolved trauma histories and whose ideologies, practices, and beliefs evolved unchecked by any system of “checks and balances” until it was almost too late. We have created precisely such monitoring systems within our government to prevent the abuse of power.

14. IN THE TREATMENT OF TRAUMA, THE ABUSIVE BEHAVIORS RESULTING FROM UNTREATED TRAUMA MUST FIRST BE ADDRESSED, CONTAINED.

In developing effective approaches for treating trauma survivors, we have discovered that one of the most important first steps is the containment of the on-going abusive or perpetrating behaviors. The immediate safety of the family (system) members is the first priority. If it is an addictive cycle, the abusive behavior of the out of control addict must be stopped or contained as soon as possible. In the treatment of the “sick” system, we address the behaviors of both the perpetrator and the enabler. The same is true for the treatment of those who terrorize others: whether this is from a raging alcoholic or a religiously fanatical terrorist. The abusive behavior must first be stopped/contained. Those “enabling” the perpetration are also part of the dysfunctional system and must be addressed. In fact, on a subconscious level, there is often more anger toward the enabler than toward the perpetrator him/herself. We are seeing such responses toward the Taliban regime. In the intervention with dysfunctional systems (whether family, political, educational, religious, etc.), the destructive behaviors must be promptly contained before healing can begin. Assertive or forceful intervention is mandated when perpetration is ongoing.

In this process, the individual or system intervening must be personally “clear” so as to not act from his/her own unresolved trauma – becoming inappropriate in the degree of response. Decision-making from such a polarized position would result in using excessive force on others, thereby exacerbating an already unhealthy dynamic. There is a very fine line to be trodden here, as “we” must be clear ourselves in order to see it. I heard many people responding to the media with the same excessive fear that led to the incarceration of the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. I recently worked with a woman who was a young child 3-7 years old when she was detained in one of these camps with her parents and grandparents during World War II. We must be very cautious and appropriate in our responses to our fears and trauma-based tendencies toward over-reaction – actions which could result in trauma and abuse to others. In doing such, we would perpetuate the cycle of fear and inadvertently contribute to the fulfillment of the terrorist/perpetrator’s original goal: knowing life as fear.

15. WE MUST TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE “BIG PICTURE” TO MAKE SENSE OF CURRENT EVENTS AND TO IMPLEMENT APPROPRIATE STRATEGIES.

As a student of archaeology and ancient cultures, I am aware that history always proceeds as a historical dialectic. The more comprehensive picture of world events indicates that our evolution manifests as a dialectic process. When imbalances have arisen in history, crises are precipitated (usually on an unconscious level) to raise our awareness and to address the unresolved issues. We are facing such a time in our evolution. These are critical moments when our exercise of power must be examined and applied carefully.

We are in the process of exploring the nature of the true creative power we possess as a species. If the quantum physicists are correct that the "act of observation collapses the quantum probability wave into reality," then the power of perception needs to be handled quite respectfully. In light of the revolutionary changes in communication that enable us all to experience events of import simultaneously or “live,” we must be aware of the impact of admitting events of such intensity so frequently into our psyches. How we shape our own minds and the minds of our children are matters of great import. We discover the power to usurp the loyalty of young minds and bend them to a cause that presents salvation as self-sacrifice: turning their bodies into walking bombs, or our airplanes and their passengers into flying missiles. We are a species that, as Bernie Siegel in Love, Medicine, and Miracles stated, “become addicted to our beliefs.” These beliefs may be grounded in reality or the distorted propaganda generated by decades of reinforced trauma.

Three thousand years ago our ancestors expressed in mythology their belief that something fundamental had gone wrong in our history. In their cosmology, the Higher Power of their understanding would not impose such a condition of violence or aggression upon them; therefore, we ourselves must have committed some original breach or “sin” to precipitate such discord in the world. We now recognize that there was, indeed, a breach from all that our research and understanding of human nature has provided, but the breach was anticipated by our nature/design.

In our earliest preverbal stages of evolution, we were frequently overwhelmed by the mystery and primal forces of the human experience. Some of these events were experienced as trauma. During these moments of early encoding, we began to disassociate through the natural protective system inherent in our design – a system that enabled us to cope with pain, trauma, and violence until we were conscious enough to deal with them. For the past 950,000 years we have been availing ourselves of this natural “numbing” or disassociative mechanism. We have depended upon it to protect us from our mistakes and moments of overwhelm. In our increasing confidence over our “control” of our world and its perceptions, we have come to take for granted that natural system of protection. In fact, over time, we began to “play with the system.” We began to over-stimulate the senses as “entertainment,” assuming our capacity to detach from over-stimulation or violent imagery to be essentially harmless and “external” to our actual integrity and spirituality. We did not realize until we began to grasp the intricacies of quantum perception that there are no purely “external” perceptions to a quantum creator – that every television show ever witnessed, every violent word or action at home or school was viewed from deep within your most profound sanctum of perception and safety: employing your own inner projector to manifest the images as real within your quantum mind. We became very casual over time -- assuming the perceptive act to be protectively “external” and, therefore, no threat to the working of the inner psyche. We never anticipated the use of the same “entertainment” functions of our society as a terrorist vehicle for “live” intentional insertion of subconsciously targeted images or actions. The deliberate targeting of archetypal symbols of a nation or culture (the “stock market” has, in fact, become an accepted international archetypal symbol of financial stability) in order to impact the inner psyche was not considered seriously. I suspect that it was only a matter of time before quantum perception and its power became usable as a kind of psychological weapon. The events of late are most appalling because they are psycho-spiritual in their nature and impact. They involved the use of the quantum creative function of perception to induce horror within the minds and hearts of viewers.

We have known for some time, in studying the profound impact of trauma on the bodymind, that there was a growing appreciation for the act of quantum perception. Take a look at the article I posted on my website some years ago, entitled: “Respecting our Quantum Perception.” I came to recognize the power of the act of perception from my work with the first 5000 trauma survivors I treated. I saw how a harsh word or cruel look devastated the psyche of an innocent, unsuspecting child. I also saw the devastation to the psyches of Sept. 11th and knew that discussion of the power of quantum perception was no longer an option; it was a mandate.

Historically, every established system will evolve via the challenges that it faces. These “confrontations” may seem legitimate or, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, may arise from a completely unprecedented or unanticipated direction. In fact, the greatest scientific discoveries seemed to arise as accidental. This is not always true, however, for long-established systems. My own study of the history of the Catholic Church in which I was raised has provided an example. I did a paper in Rome during my studies under the tutelage of a man who worked for the Holy Office in Rome; the paper was well received. They monitor the “orthodoxy” of teachings, literary works, etc. In the paper I stated that the positive value of history as a dialectic process was clearly demonstrated when a practice had arisen in which “blessings” or “indulgences,” said to guarantee one’s steps toward salvation, were made available for actual “purchase.” Such a state of materialistic deterioration in spiritual practice and theology was eventually confronted and challenged by the spiritually-minded individuals of the period, but not without resistance. Nonetheless, we learned from this experience that, for every “sale of indulgences,” there will naturally arise in a society a Martin Luther to confront it. It may not even be the issue of the accuracy of the “revolutionary’s” philosophy that reigns in import after all is over. In a dialectic process, the event or confrontation serves a much greater purpose. To the many people of the established church of his day, Martin Luther was a raging heretic; to others, he was a hero! Sound familiar? In the long-run, his response caused a well-entrenched institution to re-examine its actions and modify its teachings: thesis … antithesis … synthesis. The original precepts and philosophy of the “heretic” often served a higher purpose. This historical dialectic will always be found underlying significant changes or events, irrespective of the original cause or source!

The “big picture” of the current dialectic process indicates that a major shift is under way. The agency is a terrorist and his followers. Again, however, the backdrop is that of religious precepts and political intrigue. The actual issue, upon deeper examination, is about the role of fear and the use of quantum perception as a weapon for psycho-spiritual-political-financial destabilization. Its effectiveness as a weapon will depend largely upon the prehistory of trauma and violence that the society has already stored, ignored, or tried to medicate away. We face, therefore, a personal call to responsible management of our quantum perception. We also have an opportunity to see what “terror” has been lurking in our subconscious minds – perpetrations in our own personal histories that were in hibernation until the shock of 9-11. Understand that we have little choice from the perspective of responsibility except to meet the invitation to heal our own stored history of any form of terrorism. You can execute the rapist who violated your loved one, but until you reframe the moment when you personally encoded the horror, the rapist lives on in your subconscious, held there by your own quantum consciousness until you release him. You can capture and execute the terrorist in 2002, but you must release him from your own quantum perception from the moment “you” captured him and his followers within you on 9-11. Until such time, we harbor the energy of this terrorism unwittingly within our own powerful minds. We will all have a propensity to re-create, re-experience, and re-attract the same event until it is resolved. When we harbor such violence on a subconscious level, we will attract the events – we will unknowingly draw to ourselves the violence which matches our un-addressed trauma pattern – and we will continue to attract the unhealthy persons/events in ever growing patterns until we respond accurately to the original moment of violation. In the events of recent time, we see the global mind revealing its unresolved traumatization. The global mind has just revealed its disassociation, its trauma history and its capacity to “act out” the accumulated violence we have encoded. Change and healing in everything from media, to personal self-care, our definitions of entertainment, boundaries for sensory stimulation of children, decision-making procedures for addressing violence and aggression, and much more will all be witnessed. Remember that the end-result of all such dialectic interactions is “synthesis” and the elevation of awareness to a higher level and quality of responsible quantum creativity.

16. A NEW PARADIGM OF CONSCIOUSNESS WILL EMERGE FROM THESE EVENTS -- A HEALING PARADIGM THAT TAKES INTO ACCOUNT THE POWER OF THOUGHTS AND BELIEFS AND THEIR POWER TO TRANSFORM THE WORLD.

A great surge of change is under way. Future events will serve to clarify the emergent need for responsible communication: for a realistic reassessment of the impact of violent images and the potential use of such imagery as a weapon of fear. It is unfortunate that it has taken an “overload” of imagery, an “overwhelm” sensation such as that induced by trauma to stimulate the boundary discussion. The age of visual play, sensationalism, and the manipulation of quantum perception to grasp human attention must be evaluated in light of our growing knowledge of the impact of trauma on the bodymind.

We have become increasingly aware that the macrosystems have grown beyond the power of any one government, religion, or ideology to manage. Political or financial agendas are backed by billions of dollars in advertising, rivaling, or surpassing the economies of smaller nations: pharmaceutical companies serve as one outstanding example. A momentum was established with the onset of the industrial/technological age. Spiritual technology has been hard-pressed to keep up, but is arriving with the convergence of spirituality and physics. Its meeting point is the starting point of all agendas, both conscious and subconscious: quantum creativity – quantum perception. The delivery system of this technology is the undervalued human mind and the perfection of its interplay with the body. A “technology of healing” is emerging now that utilizes the wisdom of the bodymind to facilitate and accelerate healing. This technology will evidence the convergence between contemporary science and the demonstrative wisdom of the bodymind. I will address this shortly; I will also be demonstrating this in the near future.

As a priest, I was considered a bit of an anomaly by some of my scientific cronies. I actually excelled in science and ended up doing strict archaeology for 13 years; I did a brief period of study with NASA while still a priest. My interdisciplinary combination of science and spirituality was intriguing to many. My own experience was that spirituality offered a “level of truth” that equaled and at times surpassed that of traditional science in many respects. As an example, I never personally believed that the human spirit or mind was able to be reduced to a series of biochemical functions, nor that consciousness ceased as the biological systems shut down. For that matter, scientists cannot agree as to what “consciousness” really is! Memory, for me, was never exclusively bound to the physiology of the body, and, as such, was never the exclusive property of "traditional" science. Some psychologists and neurophysiologists insisted that memories could not be stored from the experience of the womb. I pointed out, however, that if there was any validity to the notion of “life after death,” then it was inappropriately reductionistic to assume memory to be exclusively bound to the functioning or maturity of the physical body. In my experience, it was common knowledge that consciousness transcended the limits of corporeal existence. My mother demonstrated it; I felt it; my clients reported it. I saw many demonstrations while serving as a priest to confirm this as well. One would expect that, over time, truth, in whatever forms it takes, would ultimately converge though articulated from very diverse disciplines. The traumas of recent times are forging some convergence or agreements in ideologies; they are also highlighting the peripheral groups that resist integration within the whole. Such is the nature of evolution as historical dialectic.

We have seen in recent years a resurgence in traditional or fundamental religious and political belief systems. Many are seeking some structure and stability amid the growing tidal wave of change. We seek a road map to make our way through the immense changes around us. But where are we to find the wisdom to respond to the growing overwhelm that surges around us through media, internet, revolutions in communication: its speed and availability – talking cell phones to spontaneous global networking? Other disciplines are encountering the same revolution: cloning and genetic engineering to Super-conducting Quantum Interference Devices! I cannot speak for the masters of these disciplines nor their extraordinary undertakings. I can, however, speak a word of hope from the darkness of having personally immersed myself in the psyches of 9000 trauma survivors in this last decade – bearing us into a new millennium and stage of awakening. There is a revelatory wisdom at work here.

A directional key or guide in this new stage of our evolutionary adventure comes from the inherent untapped wisdom of the bodymind. The essentially protective and disassociative traditional function of our psycho-neuro-physiological systems left us “outwardly” turned in search of a “fix” for our increasingly overwhelmed psyches. After 950,000 years of reinforced disassociation from pain and overwhelm, this is understandable. Codependency is a natural and logical by-product of trauma – the principal mechanism of inhibited development, of paused and immature consciousness. When the inner psyche is overwhelmed and incomplete, we naturally look outward, waiting for someone to appear with a solution. Eventually, this child-mind, however, is challenged with an invitation to look inward. At a certain stage of psycho-social-spiritual development we begin to consider looking inward to complete our evolutionary deficiencies. Once we hit our evolutionary early-adulthood, we no longer accept crawling back onto the old system’s lap for our nurturing solutions. We eventually rise to become our own parents, completing the bio-psycho-spiritual encoding as only we can. It feels unnatural to de-evolve into a state of dependency when all is pushing us toward some type of autonomy and empowerment. It is at just such a moment that a paradigm shift occurs.

This paradigm shift is upon us. It is exciting to behold, though its quickening is disconcerting to some. Its promise of hope quells uneasiness and restores us to center, for there is perfect wisdom emerging to greet us at our most complex stage of evolution. Even more surprising to some is the fact that this wisdom truly and pragmatically comes from within, as though genetically anticipated. This inner guidance will, I believe, map for us the next steps in our evolution.

As I explain, let us remember that what comes to us in its incipient form also mirrors the greater reality: "as above, so below," to cite a traditional mystical teaching. The holographic nature of reality (See: The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot) does indeed suggest that each fragment of the universe possesses this capacity to connect us to the whole. Each cell of our bodies contains the blueprint and capacity to manifest the whole; that is how we begin our gestation. We are conceived in the moment of completion of a genetic sequencing. This sequencing contains, among many things, the blueprint for the Limbic-Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis’ protective response to trauma. I have seen this inherent, protective system work perfectly in over nine thousand trauma survivors. Similarly, it has protected us throughout our evolutionary stages from overwhelm and the self-destructive impulses left from trauma. This sequencing and its message holds, in potential, all that we need for completion. This perfect wisdom found in the microcosmic level exposes an emergent map for addressing challenge and traumas on the macrocosmic level. I have used this very principle, abstracting from the wisdom of the bodymind’s ability to address and resolve its own pain and trauma on the intrapsychic, intrapersonal, and intra-somatic level, to prove it equally effective on the interpersonal level as well. This successful application of the same model of healing on the social level makes sense if, as I suspect, we ourselves are simply disassociated ego states of a single consciousness – called by some “the Divine Mind,” “Intelligent Infinity,” the “All in All,” the “Mystical Body of Christ,” “the collective Messianic presence,” etc. What I am saying is simply that the model of disassociation which explains so much about the fragmentation of our inner mind, also applies equally to the Divine Mind of which we are fragments or ego-states. The “I am” of the individual draws its power from the “I am” of the Source (YHWH: from the verb “to be” in Hebrew). In fact, the perfection of our protectively disassociative systems may reveal to us our deepest natural associations to each other and the universe as a conscious whole. As to the micro/macro distinctions, we may simply want to note that healing on the microcosmic level expands naturally toward the macrocosmic level when the “cosmos” itself is holographic in nature. What we discover as inherent wisdom on the “micro” scale will present as equally real on the “macro” scale. What works for us on the microcosmic scale, therefore, will also teach us much about healing on the macrocosmic scale: a level that we are now entering consciously.

The perfect reframing or mapping of the healing process of an individual is rapidly becoming evident to us and will be quite demonstrable shortly. The mapping of the healing process of the society or global community is less evident when we are not accustomed to such multidimensional processing. Fortunately, as we clear our individual traumas, we personally experience the inner wisdom that maps our healing and begins to connect us with like-minded individuals who are ready to take this personal consciousness shift to the next level. Such is the invitation of our times – an invitation to reveal our power and wisdom for healing as we reconnect with each other. As we clear our personal traumas, multidimensional thinking becomes second nature and allows solutions inconceivable before clearing. In fact, refusing our personal responsibility for healing will leave us deficient of resources for the demanding vision required to address global trauma. What we “evade below, we evade above.”

As we resolve our personal traumas, our field of consciousness clears and we begin to perceive in new and holographic ways. In my next book, entitled: Living As Light, I begin to discuss the implication of “becoming translucent”: of not being able to hide behind the trauma-induced density of the physical body, nor of being “hidden” in essence from authentic communication with others by our own “thick-fieldedness.” With the resolution of our traumas, we “lighten” and become more aware of our identities and existence as light and energy, and less defining of ourselves as finite, corporally bound beings of mere physical dimensions. With the actual experience of this phenomenon, we begin to realize that all aspects of experience are, in fact, traumatized parts of ourselves: including prisoners, criminals, and terrorists. We respond differently once we “know” ourselves as the community we once “observed” in a disassociative way.

It would appear as part of our natural system of “checks and balances” that spiritual evolution will slow for an individual when s/he chooses to avoid his/her responsibility for quantum creativity by ignoring, repressing, and denying the emotional charge of encoded traumas. We ask to be more spiritual but do our best to avoid or medicate the pain that pinpoints our blockages to greater luminosity and intimacy. We cannot “dim the lights” of our minds to hide our traumas and “embrace the light” in the same breath. We cannot be blind to our inner stored violence and expect to be alert for the terrorist that flies in through our defenses. As below; so above. Traumatic amnesia, for instance, is not selective. When induced, it routinely blocks out the pain and memory of trauma, and, in doing so, eliminates access to certain emotional frequencies on the positive level as well. We cannot become disassociative and remain fully loving. Typically, I can track the loss of visual imagery of an individual to a trauma involving a compromise in the capacity to perceive emotion safely. Upon resolving the traumatic memory, the “missing frequencies” of light return to offer authentic intimacy and safety.

Paradigm shifts are, typically, moments of sudden illumination or enlightenment. Attention is drawn to a new realm of thought or focus, and the “light” of understanding dawns upon us, opening up new possibilities. Though we have successfully survived over 950,000 years of traumatization, this protective “function” of our bodyminds has routed much of our quantum luminosity in the process. (Read Don Miguel Ruiz’s book: The Four Agreements regarding “domestication” and our natures as beings of light). Recovery of our quantum creativity resides in the invitation to master our states of consciousness. Trauma induction on a global scale produces a massive alteration in consciousness; the invitation is, therefore, global as well. We are to use our holographic natures, our “higher minds” to return the mastery of our powerful intentionality from the subconscious to conscious realms. We are to become “conscious” quantum creators and to do so on both the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels. Until such time as we come together to balance the polarities of our individual and collective minds, we will manifest disparity and dissonance on a global scale. Such is the nature of our power and our creativity.

Traumatic events impact us both individually and collectively. Work with trauma survivors has identified two principal levels of trauma common to most people. The first is the individual traumatic event; the second is a pattern or archetypal trauma that transcends the individual moment and taps into the whole of an individual or society’s trauma history. Since both are holographic in their encoding, both must be addressed for complete resolution to be achieved; any unresolved part of hologram left intact will carry the capacity to reproduce the whole. Such is the holographic nature of the universe. It will not be sufficient to the psyche to address recent events only on the global level; neutralizing the Taliban and terrorist networks will only provide partial solution. We must also attend to our personal triggers and encoding.

The new healing paradigm is based on our holographic ability to tap into both the intrapersonal and interpersonal realms of consciousness. Just as Sept. 11th resulted in the first collective “trauma wave” of such magnitude, we are invited to learn to meld our consciousness with that of others – to consciously focus our states of consciousness as a whole, rather than be coercively riveted together by the violation wrought by a common, global trauma. Our natural exigency is healing and wholeness; we will, no doubt, find the wisdom residing in the higher mind to address these issues and find equilibrium. In turning to the higher, holographic mind, new resources will arise to assist us in this great undertaking. Let us offer what support we may by utilizing the higher, mystical mind to neutralize the “trauma wave” resurrected on Sept. 11th - thereby learning to focus consciousness and generate that conscious quantum wave that will bear us into the exploration of our inherent nature as conscious creators.

May we meet at the edge of “intelligent infinity” where there is no you or I, but only the one “I am” which embraces all!

Eternal Light,
Brent M. Baum