Building Rapport With Your Superconscious Mind using the Qabalistic Cross

I am a board-certified hypnotherapist. I do, at times, all the usual stuff — smoking cessation, weight loss, personal development. But what I consider my real work, is helping clients build rapport within themselves.

One of the hypnotherapy’s grandfathers, Milton Erickson, said that building rapport was the work of every hypnotherapist (paraphrased), so I may not be unusual in that regard.

By building “rapport” Erickson is referring to the idea that when our conscious mind and our subconscious mind are working together, it makes things like weight loss or quitting smoking much easier. Our conscious desire to change something about ourselves isn’t hindered by a subconscious program that we’re unknowingly living by or acting out.

For example, someone may consciously want to stop smoking, but their subconscious was convinced, in childhood, that smoking was a way to make their peers respect them and so it became a means of survival — a way of ensuring you didn’t get kicked out of the tribe.

So, in that way, indeed, even if a hypnotherapist never really talks about “rapport,” that is the basis of the work they do.

In my practice, I have made rapport the stated goal. I help a client build rapport, not in pursuit of a single outcome (like quitting smoking) but in the service of wholeness. I believe when we create a deep bedrock of rapport in ourselves, not just between our conscious and subconscious minds, but also between our conscious and superconscious minds (our soul), we uncover who we truly are. We open ourselves up to our spiritual calling — a deep inner image that has been with us from birth. A spiritual purpose that has live in us, like an acorn (as James Hillman describes it, in his book The Soul’s Code) waiting to blossom and grow into a huge oak.

Building rapport between these parts of the mind means learning to be fluent in the language that all three parts of our mind speak.

The conscious mind is easy — it speaks in thought. Whatever language is native to the thinker, whether it be words spoken or written — that is what the conscious mind trades in. You are your conscious mind. You are “I,” you are your ego. So, building rapport isn’t really required on this level. It just is.

The subconscious mind speaks in metaphors and emotions. To that end, speaking to the subconscious mind through hypnosis requires the hypnotherapist to use metaphorical language, to invite his subject to experience and remember various emotions attached to various events. Communicating effectively with the subconscious is an act that requires charged abstraction.

But what language does the superconscious speak? How can we speak to a part of us that science can’t even prove exists? I believe we look to the non-scientific experts. Religion. Every religion, whether it’s the Southern Baptist, the Hindus, the Jainists, or the Hermeticist all performed rituals. Rituals are an outward expression, an outward acting-out, of internal processes, desires, or activity. Much of the ritual has drained out of modern life — even in religious circles. We hold to ceremonies, which are group rituals, but there are very few individual expressions of ritual practiced in today’s world.

So, one of the things I do with my clients, in an attempt to start building rapport between their conscious and superconscious minds, is invite them into ritual.

Some of these rituals are self-created. Ways of responding to internal communications. Based on the suggestion of Jungian analyst Robert Johnson, if a client has had a dream that felt significant to them, the last step in the dream analysis process is developing and enacting a short ritual, based on the dream, to confirm to the inner minds, that the message was received loud and clear.

But another way of enacting ritual involves pre-existing methods. Specifically, I train clients to use the Qabalistic Cross ritual.

The Qabalistic Cross ritual is a physical ritual used, frequently by the original Order of the Golden Dawn in their occult ceremonies. I hesitate to even mention that because the ritual itself holds as much therapeutic and psychological significance as anything. One can practice it without any knowledge, desire, or connection to the Occult.

Israle Regardie, in his book The Middle Pillar, describes the ritual as an outward expression of an internal desire to become the best, highest version of oneself.

A practitioner begins by imagining a golden sphere of white light above the crown of his head, touching his forehead and vibrating(vibrating is what it sounds like, trying to make the words vibrate in your chest) “Atoh,” a Hebrew pronoun for “thou.” The white sphere above your head represents your higher self. The best most efficacious you.

One then pictures a beam of light, descending from the crown to the feet. As this occurs, the practitioner points at his feet and intones, “Malkuth,” another Hebrew word (Earth, the lower realms). As the light descends to your feet, so does the energy of your own evolution descend upon you.

The practitioner’s hand is then moved to his left shoulder and he speaks “Ve-Gedulah” (Mercy). The hand is moved to the right shoulder and the word, “Ve-Gevurah” (power) is spoken. This horizontal movement illustrates a desire for balance in one’s life. A centering between to poles. To focus solely on power makes one cruel and domineering. To focus solely on Mercy makes one weak and ineffective. Ideally, a balance is desired.

You likely notice, at this point, you’ve described the shape of a Christian cross through your body. This makes the ritual no more Christian than the Hebrew words make is Jewish, or its History makes is Occult-ish. So, don’t worry that by involving yourself in this ritual you are somehow obligating yourself to worship of some higher power. This is not an act of worship, but rather a statement of intent. One, hopefully, seen and understood by your superconscious mind. One your higher self recognizes as enflamed invocation.

Obviously, if a client comes to me wanting to stop smoking, we don’t necessarily get into this. These methods and for clients who come to me wanting to engage in deeper work — to uncover their spiritual calling, to strip away limitations, and connect with the person they were created to be and recreate their life from the inside out.

I make no grand promises about this ritual. You won’t transcend this earthly realm, you won’t gain instant enlightenment. But I believe, over time, after continuous practice, you will build rapport within yourself. You will gain clarity and inspiration around your goals. You will start to remove internal barriers. As Regardie describes,

“Gradually, and almost imperceptibly, the student will become aware of the inspiration of that higher genius.”

If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, feel free to reach out.

www.patchdrury.net