The Message and the Door

August 16, 2018 General Insights No Comments

“… Your belief has healed you. ” [Lucas, 18, 35]

2000 years ago it was already the case and it is still true: people are not taught to ‘believe’ in themselves (in their ‘total self’).

On the contrary! In this sense, the above sounds revolutionary to me.

‘Belief in what’? As stated: ‘Belief in Yourself – beyond ego’. (*)

While medical science has repeatedly and thoroughly shown that learned helplessness plays an important role in depression and psycho-somatics, the practical construction of that same science (just step inside a pharmacy) rather encourages helplessness.

This is not a matter of bad faith of course. It’s a matter of will… or a lack of will.

But, where do you find the will to find your will if you have not yet found your will?

Uh.

So actually it is a matter of ‘willing to will’.

One has to start somewhere of course. Well, ‘willing to will’ is something one can work on. Roll up your sleeves. Head up high. Act. When? Right away: by repeatedly reflecting on this text.

‘Believing in yourself’ is completely different from ‘believing that it is going to rain tomorrow’.

The latter is statistics. The former is a ‘knowing’, even if you don’t know it and of course you cannot know it. It’s a mindset, a mental attitude. It is very much related to… placebo. Also in case of a placebo, you can notice a faith, a ‘knowing’ that the pill will cure you. In case of a pure placebo it’s even only this belief that constitutes its activity, thus clearly not the reality of what one believes but only the belief in itself. It is the ‘power of faith’. For the deeper self this faith is a direction, for example in case of placebo it is the direction towards a reduction of symptoms.

Rest assured, this is no plea for placebo.

In itself, the placebo pill is a kind of suggestion, but not of autosuggestion. The deeper self is being pushed, but it is not being entirely ‘moved to another place’. It’s like if you would push against a large plum pudding, which will shortly thereafter be back to its original form, or which might even bubble back somewhat further.

In other words: placebo works only at a symptomatic level.

When a placebo is given ‘with love’, it still only works symptomatically. At the same time, the ‘with love’ may also have an effect of course, even a deeper effect. The question is: do we then still need the placebo? A second question: is it possible to really fool someone ‘with love’, unless in exceptional circumstances? Or is what is in such case called ‘love’ rather a form of arrogant paternalism?

OK. Where were we: the ‘power of faith’. In fact this is not quite right. Let’s look at a placebo. It has a message, for example.: “Thou shalt heal”. The message itself is not the same as the ‘believing in the message’. Of course, if you have no faith in it at all, then the message has zero effect. But without a message, there is even nothing to have faith in. Well,

it is the message that is the communication which, if it gets through, reaches the deeper self.

If a pill of milk powder brings the message of ‘less pain’, the result will be less pain. If that same pill brings the message of ‘more pain’, the result will be more pain. ‘Having faith in’ the message works like a door. Door open – message in. Door closed – nothing happens.

It’s the same with autosuggestion. This is very relevant!

But first a little bit more about this: the term ‘faith’ can really put someone off. Ditto with ‘hope’ for example, or ‘expectation’. In short: it may indicate an action OR what the action relates to. For example:

“I have a faith in which I have faith.”

“This is my hope and I hope that it will come true.”

“My expectation did come true, as expected.”

Every time it’s the message in one case and the action in the other case. It’s the message that is the (auto)suggestion. In case of a placebo, the message is the ‘communication with the nonconscious’. The message carries in itself the power to change (e.g. reduction of pain), or better said:

the message reaches the power, which is of course the power of the deeper self.

As is always the case with (auto)suggestion. The placebo is the ‘carrier of a message’, as the text you are reading now is also a ‘carrier of a message’. However, in case of a placebo the message is much more symbolic, more ‘vertical’ if you like.

A placebo is about ‘the power of hope’. Which hope (the message or the door) is meant here?

This is just ambiguous. This is… natural language. That is by nature ambiguous in all sorts of cases. Usually this lack of accuracy is no problem, but in a case like this it may be very misleading…

+ : If the message (hope or faith or expectation…) is deep, it’s deep. If not, it’s not.

Let’s now digreee a bit more about the door. The first thing that stands out is that the door can apparently be opened much more easily from the outside than from within. I mean: it’s easier to make someone believe that a pill works, than that (s)he him(her)self works.

Learned helplessness. What causes it?

Each time again and again, people (or organizations) have an interest in other people needing them. The principle is quite simple: 1) You cannot and I can. 2) You need me. 3) You pay me (money, property, subordination…). This principle, in which point 1 is often being strongly forced, is older than the oldest street. Look at religion. Look at medicine. Look at … It happens all the time. The result: fear, guilt, shame, hopelessness, helplessness, etc. You can be ponderous about it or you can make jokes about it. Heaven or hell… or a contentious issue. Not evident! And look, now you can say that this is/was necessary in order to build a society. One cannot build a polis on pure anarchy. That is correct.

Also in this case, AURELIS provides a different possibility, a ‘third way’

instead of grasping or throwing away people: finally valuing people for who they truly are, for the potential they have deep down inside to be there for themselves and for each other.

But how does the door open from the inside when using autosuggestion? Self-deception is out of the question, or at least less interesting, less fun, less humanly ‘alive’ even, if you know what I mean: more like ‘living dead’. The ‘certainty’ of total-self-esteem has to come from yourself. Certainly something to think about when raising one’s own children. But of course you always have to start with yourself.

Do you believe in yourself? To what extent do you dare to believe in yourself? What are you willing to do to walk this path?

Can you ‘play with certainty’ about yourself and about a future change, a certainty that is not a lowly seeing-the-future and yet is a certainty? Do you like to want? Opening the door from inside will always be less easy, but the result is much more valuable.

+ : If the door (hope or faith or expectation…) is deep, it’s deep. If not, it’s not.

Hm. And for the connoisseurs: if the door is really deep, then it IS the message. You see: then ‘to believe’, or ‘to hope’, or ‘to expect’ become verbs without an object. Everything is flying.

And that’s OK.

(*) For whom the relevant metaphory is in their debt, this means: faith in ‘Christ within you’. Equally well. With sufficient depth, it all amounts to the same thing. Note that there is not written: “I have cured you,” nor even the more neutral “You are cured.” This is significant.