Dr. Allen S. Chips
September, 2002

President's Message: Change & Spiritual Guidance:

In our profession, as we hypnotherapists cross the roles of minister and alternative mental health specialist, we often encounter mystics, intuitives, and psychics through the cross pollination efforts in our field. I personally have met hundreds, and therefore have received dozens of free, unsolicited readings each year. I always seem to find them helpful as "sources of information." Sometimes it seems that the clairvoyant is reading my mind... other times it appears that he/she is getting information from the collective unconscious or the spirit realm. Also, it appeared that some have been able to read my future with a level of accuracy. About 95% of all of my readings have been very positive, despite my human flaws.

I remember when I got a psychic reading from somebody in Tennessee several years ago, and he kept having an outside conversation with somebody - I later found out from the people that bought me the reading that he supposedly was talking to his spirit guides. All the information about my trips from Ohio to Virginia was completely accurate, my relationships, even road hazards along the way... all true. He then rambled off a bunch of stuff about the next few years. Well, it all came true. I received a cassette tape of the reading in the mail, just after the reading was completed, and compared it to the occurrences of the following two years, and I was astounded. One of the last things that were said on the tape was, "The only thing that we can be sure of in this life, is that everything will change."

Over time, I took the whole experience as a gift from spirit guidance; these spirit guides supposedly were his "sources of information." I then began contacting my own spirit guides and started to awaken my intuition by allowing myself to reach a deep state of self hypno-meditation and accessing various realms within "the light." I tested the information from time to time by asking future probability questions to one specific spirit guide and thereby documented her accuracy as the future unfolded as indicated. My favorite "source of information" stayed with me several years before others tuned in, and it was she that gave me the greatest ability to intuit. I began doing readings for others as part of my private practice, and was also very busy with transpersonal and clinical hypnotherapy session. Soon I had a "reading clientele." In fact, I began to gain some corporate executives as clients, but it was about that time that I decided that this role fostered a type of dependency. People were depending on me for their spiritual connection and their futures. I also started having lucid dreams and had to decipher which client I was experiencing in my dreams, often problems I lived through the client's eyes. At the time, I was vegetarian, and found out it made me more sensitive to others' experience. Essentially. I became clairascentient. I was uncomfortable with the spontaneous dreams, kinesthetics, and the dependencies, so I began to eat meat, lift weights, and close off my widening opening to my intuition a bit. I then told all of my clients that they could become their own psychics by learning hypno-mediation and contacting their own spirit guides. So many of them came to a workshop I presented, "Contacting Your Spirit Guides." I was satisfied with the results and independence this produced, and have been ever since.

As far as guidance is concerned... Edgar Cayce said that the best time to meditate and "listen to the small voice within" is between three and four in the morning. Some powerful saints, stigmatists, and mystics, have also indicated the exact same thing for the power of prayers. I have found this to be most accurate for myself, as well, and in addition to the 3-4 window, I have also found that meditation for spirit guidance is most effective in the morning shortly after waking.

Why am I talking so much about this, you might ask; well, I feel that spirit guidance is very important in one's decision to clarify exactly what his or her purpose is at this time... Should we take or conduct that next workshop?; or should we write that first book... that next book? Should we see more, or less clients? Should we work on ourselves more, or help to heal others instead? Should we stay put, or move on? Should we trust the other party in a relationship, or should we be cautious?

Ah, yes, that ever-important conceptualization of "trust,"‹another intuition issue. USA Today thought it was worth polling Americans and "trust" on the front page in a July issue. It appears that Dannion Brinkley was correct when I saw him speak in 1996 at the Richmond Holistic Expo and he said that people would not trust large groups or organizations in the new Aquarian age. From about 2000 to 2005, people will learn to trust and rely on one-another more instead. This is what the poll indicated as well. We trust people that we know. Certainly after 9-11 this became more collective within our consciousness. Interestingly, however, the poll indicated that over the last decade or so, the trust factor rose for family, friends, and acquaintances, but fell for corporate, government, and organizations. Thank goodness they indicated that it remained high for small businesses, because that's us!.. the NATH.

Yet, things are changing rapidly here. We are reorganizing the NATH now; we are creating a nonprofit entity and merging the Eastern Institute of Hypnotherapy into the NATH. This was a big change for us. Now we can start to move forward with a more spiritual mission, starting a ministry for hypnotherapists, energy workers, and healers, whereby they may achieve ordination. In addition, the ministry will be the foundation for the American Holistic University (AHU). As many of you know, we have been developing courses with faculty in order to offer distance education doctoral degrees in divinity and hypnotherapy (Fall, 2002). After its first year or two of operation, AHU will expand into naturopathy, homeopathy, holistic arts, and transpersonal psychology.

As you can imagine, we have been very busy here with our restructuring. Nonetheless, it has been very exciting to unfold the new direction that our organization is taking. It has been quite a giant undertaking, but not without spirit guidance, intuitive counsel, and dreams.

Ah yes, dreams. Edger Cayce said that no major event would occur in one's life without it first being revealed in a dream. When my intuition has closed down, from my lack of practicing hypnomediation (or being regressed to remove blockages), I have had to rely on my dreams. In fact, for those of you who have become "life-between-lifers" as we dotingly refer to here around the office, or are contemplating to become such, I must inform you that Michael Newton, Dee, and I first worked out all of the details to thas training program our dreams. This occurred in our dream state approximately one year before the first training program. Now that we are embarking upon our third training program, and Dr. Newton is referring his clients (who have been on a five year waiting list) to the graduates of the program; it has appeared that many of our NATH membership have experienced a deeper, more meaningful purpose. Most of the public's inquiries for this 3-4 hour Life Between Lives session have come through this office.

As I look at our reorganization efforts of late, I clearly remember a reading about a "university" I was to start that would become very important to our purpose in the future, according to a few intuitives. At the time, we had no idea what these remote viewers and psychics were saying; we could only guess that it had something to do with NATH conferences. After all, who would come all the way out to our 30-acre retreat near the Blue Ridge Mountains to attend university classes?

Another "ah-ha"... distance education,... "the wave of the future." Now, things that were out of focus at one time were becoming more clear. They were also saying that after 2000 my travel by plane would become limited. Additionally, other psychics said that I would write several books (believe me, after laboring over the first one, I thought they were crazy). Now, I am beginning my third book and proposing one other book to an outside publisher.

I believe that we need to look at guidance within these times as a most important factor... Yet, I must admit, as each of us who have made "the connection" and received guidance have probably encountered, "discernment" is very important. As one spirit guide said through one of my life-between-lives clients, (a bearded fellow with a jolly laugh), "Discernment is the key." The client was with their "counsel" remembering pre-birth existence at the time. That occurred in 1989; yet, it still stands true to this day. Discernment is key for us all when following spiritual guidance. If we are to follow our intuitions, we should set up a pattern using logic. In one of the books I am writing now, I mention that "truth manifests when intuition and logic meet." I've often used this recommendation when advising clients over the years, and it's always worked for me. God Bless and peace in all of your endeavors to heal the planet and make the world a better place for souls!

-from The Bridge, Volume 8, Issue 2