Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnotherapy / NLP (Paperback)

Anyone who works systematically through the book, will find that any concerns over the ethics and morality of hypnosis or NLP vanish. As NLP Practitioners, we especially value Mr Elias' transpersonal insights into making the healing process a deep and far reaching one. His processes can not only lead to healing, but also growth; verdant and lush growth, far beyond our own limiting beliefs about ourselves. His work is challenging without a doubt. Allow yourself to wonder just how many of your beliefs about yourself and the world are truly limiting your potential and you will be sure to get the most from this magical book.

We will use this book and Jack Elias' 'Finding True Magic' course to enrich our NLP practice with the high level of transpersonal hypnotherapy skills we are sure he will offer.

Jack Elias writes in the genre of Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Mark Epstein: brilliant, passionate thinkers with a genius for interpreting and applying Eastern thought for the benefit of Westerners in the helping professions and those seeking to bring illumination to the dilemmas of their personal lives. He draws upon the experience of continuous study during his entire adult life with some of the major teachers of Eastern philosophy who have come to the West. These teachings have been deepened and integrated by his own meditation practice and in 18 years as a counselor, hypnotherapist, and teacher.

Gifted writers somehow infuse their work with their own voices. Elias' voice is clear, touching and compelling in these pages, enlivening the text with passion for the material and revealing the depth of his own rigorous honesty and contemplation of the ideas he presents. Direct, articulate and poetic, his writing invites the reader - whether experienced therapist or lay person - to embark upon a journey toward awakening.

True Magic, in Elias' perspective, can be found in the basic goodness of each individual. Grounded in uncompromising, and unsentimental faith in the presence and function of innate basic goodness, he assembles a wealth of practical techniques that make the magic of healing profoundly inspiring and understandable. He makes simple observations and then describes how they can profoundly transform and empower the therapeutic process and personal growth. For example, he states "Hypnotic processes are redundant...because we are always already in trance," and, "we think we live in the world, but we live in our minds." He then proceeds to give the reader a working understanding of these points.

Elias emphasizes that therapy and self inquiry must be based on the assumption that even problem behaviors, attitudes or emotional pain have behind them an innate pure intent of achieving wholeness and balance. The role of the therapist - and the intent of the book - are to redirect awareness and energy to dissolve habitual patterns fueled by negative emotions that maintain physical, mental and emotional pain. The therapist is the facilitator of a natural healing process rather than a controller "doing" hypnosis to a client in trance.

Some of the most immediately useful elements are a wide variety of original scripts that can be used by students and therapists in traditional trance work or by individuals as a basis for healing meditation or journaling. Each script reflects the use of relaxation, healing imagery, and application of newly discovered inner resources that lead to ecologically sound, lasting solutions. The solutions and newly recognized resources which emerge spontaneously from the unconscious can be claimed as evidence of the individual's own inner strength and healing power. Solutions -and the ability to generate creative healing solutions - become permanent resources for future growth. Script topics range from self hypnosis for deep, healing relaxation, to regression and past life therapy, resolving inner conflicts, pain relief, exploring the human relationship to archetypal energies, and many others..

All of the work - text, instructions, examples and scripts incorporate and teach the arts of hypnotic communication: trance induction techniques, deep relaxation, pacing and leading, neuro-linguistic processes, vivid use of metaphor, imagery and more. The whole approach relies on the natural way the mind perceives, interprets, stores, processes and retrieves sensory information to quickly resolve problems such as phobias, trauma relief, motivation and performance enhancement.

The goal of all these techniques is to accomplish brief therapy that is based in natural mind/body healing capacities that are powerful, deep and transformative. Finding True Magic is a resource that makes this liberating kind of work possible for therapists of a variety of persuasions. It provides unforgettable insights about the role of the helper and illuminates the path of personal growth.