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Title
A CONVERSATION WITH JACK TRUE
Release Date
2005-07-31
Time
09:09:00
Comment
Article Text
JULY 31, 2005. Subscribers to PREMIUM CONTENT know I have printed a number of illuminating and challenging interviews with the late hypnotherapist, Jack True.
Over the years we had several conversations about "basic questions." One of Jack's strategies was induce a light trance in a patient---a trance which was free of any specific suggestion---and then ask the patient a basic question.
As usual (in this interview), Jack talks in a way that makes people think in ways they may not want to. He puts people off balance. He does this on purpose. He likes to do this.
One of Jack's favorite questions, with patients, was: WHAT IS THE UNDERLYING BASIS OF REALITY?
Here, from 1992, is a short conversation Jack and I had.
Q: Why do you like that REALITY question so much?
A: Because it gets a person to view what reality is all about. It cuts through a lot of crap. I'm only interested in the patient's version of how reality is formed. I'm not trying to impose my own view.
Q: What kinds of answers do you get?
A: They evolve. They sometimes start with a religious format, and then that changes.
Q: Why does that change?
A: Because I allow the patient to keep searching. I don't cut him short. I let the sessions go on.
Q: Are you hoping to get a final answer from a patient?
A: Hell no. I know, from experience, that as the patient changes his answers, HE changes.
Q: Changes how?
A: He becomes more strong, more confident.
Q: And this is because?
A: He's getting through layers of weaker answers into layers of stronger answers, answers that mean more to him. He's on a voyage, and he becomes more confident in navigating by the seat of his pants.
Q: Why do those weaker answers exist at all?
A: They're compromises. The person has opted for more and more conventional answers. He became less confident in answering the question to his own satisfaction.
Q: How do systems play into this?
A: The more conventional answers are part of some system.
Q: So it would be like a painter who moves further and further into the orbit of copying some style, as opposed to painting what he wants to.
A: Sure. Yes. And the thing about a system is, you have to assert it with more force to give it credence TO YOURSELF. You have to keep pushing it. That looks like confidence, but it isn't. It's a substitute. And the person falling into the trap experiences this slippage, this gap between what he really would think and what he comes to accept as real.
Q: In your work with patients, do you care whether the person is telling you what he thinks the underlying basis of reality is or whether he is imagining it, is making it up?
A: No. I don't care at all. And I don't try to differentiate that. I just plow ahead. It all comes out in the wash. Because I'm working with a basic confusion in the patient. He's lost the thread. He isn't sure when he's accepting something or inferring something or making up something. That's a basic part of his problem. He doesn't sort that out. But he will, given time. He does. And it's a beautiful thing to see when it happens. It's like the person comes walking out of swamp with a big grin on his face.
Q: So you could say you're renewing the power of the person's imagination.
A: It's like washing the dirt from a lump of gold.
Q: Why does imagination get the short end of the stick so often?
A: Because we're operating inside a consensus. It's ever-present. Consensus is mostly a sign of fear. It's what you opt for when you think you've got noplace else to go. Let me put it this way. The best and the brightest kids supposedly go to the "really good" colleges. Well, visit one of those places on graduation day. Forget all the exuberance and the drunkenness. Just look at the faces and assess how many of those kids are all set to join in the consensus and how many are going to go somewhere else.
Q: Do you know of any college that has a serious place for IMAGINATION in its courses?
A: Do you?
Q: No.
A: Almost as bad, how many colleges offer a long course in which the students have to decide what the underlying basis of reality is? I mean each student, on his own. It's such an obvious question---the one about reality---but you see, these colleges don't want to get into that because it's too dangerous. It moves you out of the consensus right away.
Q: You're saying it doesn't matter whether a person recognizes what he actually thinks reality is all about, or whether he imagines what reality is all about?
A: The two are entwined. You can't get to ultimates of any kind if you leave imagination out of the equation. Here we are, talking. If our imaginations were turned off, we'd be having a much different conversation. We're creating this discussion. We're also getting to the truth. They work together, like brothers.
Q: Go a little further with that.
A: Imagination creates reality. That's the bottom line. Everything else is a stall. A postponement of the inevitable. Get it? What are we really doing as we sit here and talk? We're looking at one thing and one thing only: imagination. We're talking about imagination and its power. And we're using imagination to talk about imagination. Why are we doing that? Are we weird and different? No. It's what everybody does all the time. Whether they know it or not. Imagination is the cutting edge. The leading edge. Reality is what you get when you imagine. Reality is the evidence of the presence of imagination. This may sound confusing, but it isn't. It's very straightforward. Imagination is the great ocean. It may look like an ocean but it's imagination. We create, and we swim in what we create, but all in all, it's all imagination. Some parts of it look and feel more solid than others. But even if we're dedicated scientists who believe in nothing except what we can prove, we're always swimming in imagination. That's all we're swimming in. And imagination is a word we use to describe Basic Us. What we are, what we do, what we see. Imagination is everywhere. It's alive. It's the primary Water. The sooner we get used to it, the happier we are.
JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com