"You really think you're better than anyone else",
a psychologist told me. I was 16, and going for the entrance exam at Pakistan's Air Force Academy Risalpur. One test was to have a psychologist observe how each candidate lead a team through an obstacle course, followed up with questionnaires.
That was his observation. "No I don't", I replied, "my job was to lead them". Still, my first encounter with a psychologist, and it intrigued me. (I passed the exam BTW).
Maybe it was a test, to see how I'd react. Maybe he saw something I'd struggled with since I was a kid. Beyond normal feelings of alienation, yes I knew I was different. While I was a loner, I also was quite social, but in a neutral, friendly sort of way. And I observed, others and myself.
A phrenologist said when I was 11: "He looks at people and sees something others just can't".
I wanted to understand myself, and, the human condition. That's why I looked at them, but with different eyes than others. (I could see auras by then). Psychology was too limited for my way of thinking, so my studies took me elsewhere.
Yes, I eventually studied Freud, and Jung, Adler and Sabina Spielrein. About them, more later, and especially Sabina Spielrein, the Russian psychoanalyst who was one of the pioneers. Yet I found their insights actually mirrored what I learned through my spiritual work. Funny, that Sabina Spielrein and I both shared a Scorpio nature, and worked with The Destruction Of Self. (Which goes back to Buddhism, BTW, and the destruction of the ego). I do this through meditation, laying on of hands, balancing the male and female, going into the void, and analysis.
I also learned the following occult subjects, astrology, palmistry, numerology and many more. Fascinated by the question of the death of self and what happens after we pass through the veil, I learned to talk to spirit. (I'd been seeing them since I was 5, in Tokyo). Again, knowledge from past lives, of Bardo and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, remembering the many times I had passed away. Many of my articles here are of a psychological bent, seen through the spiritual prism.
While I learned to be a healer I knew it would be important for me to learn about mental illness.
Hence, The Natural Treatment of Mental Illness August 13, 2012.
Fascinated by criminal psychology, I wrote about The Criminal Mind September 02, 2011.
I learned why I decided to focus on mental illness when three of my children were hit by Autism, and a fourth had a learning disorder. This became my life work, so that I treated hundreds of children at my clinics in Toronto and abroad, many successfully, with most showing remarkable improvement.
Here's my protocol: Not Incurable- New research on Autism December 11, 2007. In the end, it is not a cure. As I wrote:
I'm sharing this with you because Autism is not only a physical, but also is a karmic and spiritual illness. I've seen it as a metaphor for helplessness; when the world tells you that something is hopeless, I tell you, the answers are out there.
I tell you this, it is the world, not just these children, that is out of balance. Until the world is healed, it will be a never ending battle.
This comes back to my subject, Spiritual Psychology, and, the study of self and how we determine identity.
This the foundation of my work in psychology The 12 Chakra System of Healing
SPIRITUAL HEALING IN THE WAY OF ATLAN by
Naseer Ahmad
(based on a talk I gave in Toronto~1991)
An ancient method of healing rediscovered for the 21st century.
Atlan Spiritual Healing is an energy system that, by the placing of hands on parts of the body that correspond to the chakras and acupuncture meridians, heals the physical, emotional and spiritual parts of our being.
Before Atlantis, there was a way of life called The Way of Atlan. It explained the connection between our individual and divine selves, and how to address our physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Much of the Way of Atlan has been lost, but fragments of it exist in the world’s religions and philosophies.
...(The Yellow Chakra) on the solar plexus, is our soul, ego and identity (and so on)...Soul, ego, identity can be formed by the sum total of our memories, environment, childhood experience, inherited factors.
Except, what about the sum total of previous lifetime memories? Do they form us as well? That is why I examine previous lives and inherited factors, like individual but also national karma (hence my frequent digressions into 'politics' and interest in history).
Ancient Psychology:
History Of Brain Surgery
"Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts. There is no hard evidence suggesting a beginning to the practice of other fields of medicine such as pharmacology — using drugs, chemical and natural ingredients to help a fellow human being. There is ample evidence, however, of brain surgery, dating back to the Neolithic (late Stone Age) period.
Unearthed remains of successful brain operations, as well as surgical implements, were found in France at one of Europe’s noted archeological digs.
The success rate was remarkable, even circa 7,000 B.C.
However, pre-historic evidence of brain surgery was not limited to Europe. Pre-Incan civilization used brain surgery as an extensive practice as early as 2,000 B.C. In Paracas, Peru, a desert strip south of Lima, archeologic evidence indicates that brain surgery was used extensively.
Here, too, an inordinate success rate was noted as patients were restored to health. The treatment was used for mental illnesses, epilepsy, headaches, organic diseases, neuropathy treatment, osteomyelitis, and for head injuries.
Brain surgery was also used for both spiritual and magical reasons; often, the practice was limited to kings, priests and the nobility".
Ancient peoples and psychoactive plants
(use of to create euphoria, help deal with stress, depression),
Prehistoric High Times: Early Humans Used Magic Mushrooms, Opium
and plants were used in healing ceremonies by people living in Mesoamerica,
A Beautiful Mind: The History of the Treatment of Mental Illness
the history of treating mental illnesses dates as far back as 5000 B.C.E. with the evidence of “trephined skulls.”
In the ancient world cultures, a well-known belief was that mental illness was “the result of supernatural phenomena”; this included phenomena from “demonic possession” to “sorcery” and “the evil eye”. The most commonly believed cause, demonic possession, was treated by chipping a hole, or “trephine”, into the skull of the patient by which “the evil spirits would be released,” therefore healing the patient.
Although ancient Persians also believed that the illnesses were caused by demons, they practiced precautionary measures such as personal hygiene and “purity of the mind and body” in order to “prevent and protect one from diseases”.
Similarly, the Egyptians recommended that those stricken with mental illness should participate in “recreational activities” in order to relieve symptoms which displayed that, as a civilization, the Egyptians were very advanced in their treatment of mental handicaps. (Foerschner)
During the 5th and 3rd centuries B.C.E., the Greeks changed the way that psychological disorders were viewed. The philosopher and physician, Hippocrates, discovered that illnesses come from “natural occurrences in the body” (Foerschner).
As Hippocrates was studying mental illness, he stepped away from the superstitious beliefs and towards the medical aspect of it. He studied the pathology of the brain and suggested that mental illness stemmed from imbalances in the body.Yet at the same time there was and is a prevailing cultural belief that mental illness was a symptom of demonic possession. Tibetan, African shamanic healers all dealt with mental illness in a similar way: explaining the phenomenon through a therapeutic analytical process, ritual and ceremony, the use of psychotropic herbs. Even Jesus was said to cast demons out of people. Here's a modern clinician's attempt to bridge the divide:
Questions about demonic possession
Clinical experience in answering questions about demonic possession
In daily practice in psychiatry in Egypt, various forms of mental illness are commonly attributed to magic spells or demonic possession. These illnesses are usually manifested by overt motor behavioural disturbances. Top of the list of these disorders are epilepsy and schizophrenia. Unusual ideas and actions found mythical explanations in witchcraft and demonic aetiology by patients and relatives in this traditional community.
Symptoms that are typical of obsessions are intrusive, unacceptable thoughts which many patients attribute to a demonic agent known as the devil. It's not uncommon for patients and carers to enquire whether this is due to demons or supernatural agents known as jinn.
The psychiatrist tries to find culturally acceptable answers to patients' questions about demonic and jinn possession. The basic essence in answering this questions can be summarised as doctors can adopt an empathic subjective (emic) approach to understand supernatural beliefs and attitudes within this culturally shared context (1).Spiritual Psychology:
Yet: I have found in my work that such phenomena do indeed exist, but it is best to try to explain it within a clinical scientific context. Mental illness does indeed 'stem from imbalances in the body.'
Yes, there are emotional disturbances that stem entirely from the environment, upbringing, trauma, which can effect brain function and cause chemical imbalance. Those imbalances can be felt and measured in the Psychic Chakras (From Greek word 'Psyche', the soul) shown in the 12 chakra system of healing chart above. There has to be a flow of energy through each chakra, without suppression or overemphasis on emotion, desire, the mind, or intuitive sensitivity. I often find that emotional sensitivity, also called Psychism, is just a shade away from Schizophrenia. And that while sugars feed the brain, alcohol, hallucinogenic drugs, and psychotropic medication can pass the blood brain barrier and permanently alter brain chemistry.
But the Spiritual Chakras from the crown onward are where healing takes place, which is why I call it Spiritual Psychology. This is where knowledge exists, and protection from that psychic sensitivity, and inner peace.
The Physical Chakras from the ground up can't be ignored either. The physical/material health is an important component of well-being, as is exercise, as is an understanding of karma. There is the karma of self-identity, recognition of past lives, and other inherited factors from parents, culture, religion.
Angels, Demons, Djinn:
I believe those beings exist but we can think of them as archetypes that exist within ourselves, or energies. Certainly there are forces of good or evil which affect us all on this planet. We can also strengthen our physical, mental/emotional and spiritual bodies to heal and balance ourselves.
The healing:
Sometimes it is a place, or people, or nation that need healing. Sometimes an individual. But as long as we are out of balance, the earth cannot get better, nor can our spirits, and everywhere we go we are haunted by spirits. Everywhere I go there is peace, but also, upheaval as we face up to our own resistance to healing.
I have already covered
Magick, And The Spiritual Alchemy Of The Soul
so will not go further into the Occult for now, but that too is a part of what I do.It is the spiritual work that is the more important.
I don't see any end to wars, environmental pollution, or the greed of the 1% until we heal our selves. There can be no political or social revolution without a spiritual revolution. And if you will not listen,
Let there be chaos.
