Preface What you are beginning to read about, I have lived for many years.

I have, on occasion, referred to it as Gods therapy. Generally I have called it Feeling Therapy, Deep Feeling Therapy, or Inner Healing. When I have referred to it as Gods Therapy, it has been to people that I believed would understand. Now, in this book, I seek to take you on my journey or quest to find the Healer's Art that I have referred as God's Therapy. I realize that its title could catch ones attention and might arouse a variety of reactions. One reaction I would hope for is that of strong interest and a desire to know more and thus, inspire further reading and study. On the other hand, I think others will see the title and scoff at the audacity of the author to give such a lofty title to a book about therapy and emotional-spiritual healing as if it was the final word. Never the less, I will do my best to make the case for my claim. I plan to address my comments to the average person and will try to do it in an easy to understand way. I will not load the reader down with graphs and charts and hard to understand data. What I will do, is draw from an extensive clinical experience that extends some thirty-five years. I bring an equally extensive secular education that includes a Bachelor degree with a major in Psychology and Education, which includes a minor in Sociology and History; in addition I received a Masters Degree in Social Work and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. Most of my clinical experience has been in pastoral counseling settings and as such I have had experience with scriptures and religious concepts. I believe that truth wherever it is found and by whatever name it is given will still be truth. I intend to draw truth from all sourcesbe it secular or religiousfor the readers understanding and edification. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints might more readily accept this book, as I will be drawing from Latter-day revelation as well as statements from Latter-day prophets. I will also draw from more ancient revelations from earlier prophets found in the Holy Bible and these references may not be as hard to accept by those not of the LDS faith. Remember, however, that truth is truth no matter where or when you find it. Please keep an open mind for whatever value you may find within the following pages, as I believe there can be benefits for everyone. For some it may only help you deal with personal loss or tragedy in a different way that will make all the difference in whether the loss or tragedy is horrifically compounded, or becomes, in addition to the loss, a treasured learning experience. For others it could become the means of achieving life-transforming goalshoped for, but never expected to be achieved. Others may only gain understandings that might help them help loved ones in their times of stress, but all can gain whatever one is willing to receive. Now I believe that to call the therapeutic processes contained in the following pages "Gods Therapy" there must be high standards achieved to qualifyGod Himself would accept no less than the highest. To qualify it must be the best, most long lasting, far-reaching and all healing therapy. In addition, it would have to be the oldest, available to all people, now and

from the beginning of time, and at a price that the even the poorest of men could afford. It will be my pleasure to accept the challenge and to be with you on your journey of enlightenment and discovery. I take full responsibility for what I write in the pages that follow, but I cannot take credit for the therapy because, as I hope you will see, it is Gods therapy and only he can take credit for it.

ii

Table of Contents
I. Introduction: Beginning my search for the Healer's Art A. Definitions 1. Faith 2. Humility 3. Obedience 4. Dissonance 5. Paradigm 6. Paradigm Shift II. How I found a powerful therapy A. Something new B. The day arrived III. More examples of Healing A. Evan B. Preparations for a " feeling session" C. Young man with anger D. Another thing learned E. More healing examples F. Back to the ongoing saga of Doyle Ellis G. Back to the four gay men H. An experience with a married couple I. A hard lesson learned J. Other important learning experiences K. Johna man on psychotropic drugs L. Sharing my experiences with fellow practitioners M. Lady from Southern Utah N. A personal experience with traumatic loss IV. The new therapy: Really the world's oldest A. Doctrinal truths B. A fascinating treatise on faith V. Repentance and Feeling Therapy compared A. The search for meanings B. Repentance and the Scriptures C. Looking at the mechanics of the two processes D. Examples of repentance in the Scriptures 1. Alma the Younger 2. Apostle Paul 3. The conversion of King Lamoni 4. Conversion of the King of all the Lamanites 5. Enos 6. The sermon of King Benjamin E. Summary VI. Contributions of latter-day revolutions A. Understanding the self in the light of latter-day revelations B. The Grand Council in Heaven

C. Additional knowledge useful in understanding the true nature of Man D. Man's true nature E. The second estate F. Mortality: Basic training for Godhood G. Understanding the healing process better H. Things learned from the Graphic I. Other learning's from the Circle Graphic J. Another important principle discovered VII. Jesus our Savior and role model A. Understanding the Healer's Art better B. The baptism of Jesus and the forty day fast C. JesusAn empathic man D. Christ in America E. The Atonement F. Suffering vs. repenting G. Summary VIII. Latter-day experiences that enlarge the understanding A. Moses sees God B. Joseph Smiththe man C. Another prophetlike Joseph D. A current example of Alma the Younger's "rebirth experience E. Another story of more recent times 1. Spencer W. Kimball F. More on Spencer W. Kimball G. Summary IX. All truth shall come together in one A. Defenses 1. Sigmond Freud 2. Arthur Janov 3. What the gospel teaches B. Understanding and dealing with anger C. The healing paradigm in Scriptures 1. Why use the gospel key? 2. Understanding the meaning of dialectic 3. Other examples of the dialectic principle 4. My experience with the dialectic principle a. An "Ugly", young lady b. A young lady with Anorexia 5. An interesting realization D. Addictions , compulsions and loss of agency 1. The anatomy of an addiction E. Understanding suicide and it's prevention F. Curing the "Incurable" G. Understanding dreams 1. The Old Testament

2. The New Testament 3. Dreams in the Book of Mormon a. Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life 4. Review of some latter-day dreams 5. Dreams of Parley P. Pratt 6. A bit of history 7. Characteristics of a "working dream" 8. Looking at dreams in light of this knowledge 9. King Nebuchadnezzar's dream 10. My own dream 11. Summary and conclusions H. Penetrating the "veil" 1. Near death experiences 2. Another near death experience 3. An interesting experience I. Satan Bound for a thousand years 1. The revelation of St. John the Divine 2. My understanding enlightened 3. The Lord's way J. Understanding and healing same sex attraction X. The Healing Process A. Methodology B. Processing pain C. Who can benefit? D. Some tools to help E. Prepare in advance F. Choosing a place to "feel" G. Helpful accessories H. More on processing I. The healed becomes the healer J. Just being there helps K. Feel rather than "act out" L. Learning to give up control M. More on processing N. Frequency of sessions O. Directions the healing takes place P. Use of music Q. How it works R. More on the fruits of healing S. Some other items for discussiondangers of the healing process T. Feeling vs. Hypnosis XI. Who's Therapy is it anyway? A. Answering the challengeis this God's therapy? B. Review of the conditions

C. Summary 1. An important observation XII. Epilogue A. An important story B. Understanding the principles of power and Authority C. Power D. The principle of readiness E. Timing F. The Law of Consecration G. Another example H. To summarize I. Repentance a vital part of the Lord's program J. The foundation is being laid K. Some caution is necessary L. What shall we do while we wait?

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION: Beginning My Search for the Healers Art "The only true voyage of discovery The only rejuvenating experience, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess [new] eyes" Marcel Proust As I start to write this book, I am sixty-seven years old. I have been retired for three years. I have been preparing for much of my life for this. Many of my clients, friends and acquaintances have asked me to write the book, but I put it off. Now is the timeI can put it off no longer. Having waited so long, I have so much material I find it difficult to arrange and organize it so as to make it meaningful and beneficial to you. Nevertheless I will try. I have been teaching and practicing the principles that will be explained in this book for most of my professional life and, as you will see, I am very passionate in my belief in them. As you read, I hope you will understand why. I knew in grade school that I wanted to further my education beyond high school and that I wanted to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some time during high school years I had thoughts about writing a bookbut not seriously yet. After high school I planned to go on to college. I signed up in the school of Fine Arts at the University of Utah for the fall quarter to start on the path to becoming an Architect. During that summer of 1951 I read a book called How To Be Happy Though Human by W. Beran Wolfe. Dr. Wolfe was a student of Alfred Adler who was best known for his work on the Inferiority Complex. After reading that book, I felt I understood people better than I ever had before. Doctor Wolfe said in effect, that every human being suffers from feelings of inferiority, because of the very nature of our introduction into earth life; also, because of our dependence on others to survive. After a few years in the care of giants we come to feel our frailties. In the years that follow we spend much time trying to overcome feelings of weakness and inferiority. He said that people that seem to act superior to others are merely trying to compensate for feelings of inferiority. After that, I looked more kindly on others because I recognized that we are all really in the same boat. I believe that that book helped me become a better

Christian, more than any other book I had read to that time with the exception of the scriptures. Another major effect that book had on me was to help me to change my career choice. I decided I wanted to do something that had to do with helping people. When I went to school in the Fall I took courses in Psychology and Sociology and General Education. After two and a half years, I was called to serve a fulltime mission for my church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). I was sent to Brazil and spent two years and eight months doing missionary work. By that time I was even more committed to the desire to find my lifes work in helping people, though I still did not know quite how. Upon returning home in September of 1956, I found my eternal companion, Ruth, started working for the V.A Hospital as a psychiatric nursing assistant, and returned to school at the University of Utah. During the next two and a half years I took more classes in Psychology and Human Relationsstill not knowing specifically what I wanted to major in. Since I came from a family of educators I decided to get my high school teaching certificate in addition to whatever other training I received. Finally, I decided to major in Psychology and Education and to minor in Sociology and History and I was qualified to teach in High School. Then I went to work for the Salt Lake County Welfare Department and continued to work at the V.A Hospital on the weekends. By that time I had decided that a degree in Social Work could lead to becoming a marriage counselorthat by now had some appeal for me. The Welfare Department awarded me a grant to obtain an M.S.W. (Masters degree in Social Work) and I received that degree in two years. Ruth and my family, which consisted of a boy and three girls, and myself, lived near the School of Social Work building on the University of Utah campusit was a great life. After returning to the welfare department I continued to work as a casework supervisor for the next three years. My first position as a clinical therapist came when Grant Hyer invited me to join their staff at the LDS Hospital, which I accepted. The clinic was called the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic. I enjoyed the work. My job was to see people sent in by their bishops for individual, marriage, or family counseling after they had been seen by a psychiatrist and evaluated for medications. I would help them find the correct medications and the optimum balance, in consultation with the psychiatrist. I also did the basic counseling. I enjoyed the work and learned a lot. Grant Hyer was an excellent clinician and wonderful man to work for. I stayed there for six years. Not withstanding my loving the work, it was there that I struggled with my observation that people seemed to make little or very slow progress. For a number of years I wondered and, yes, prayed to know if counseling could really help people. I thought it must be valuable by the fact that clinical counseling was so prevalent and well entrenched and had a long history. But it was not so obvious by the slow and modest results I was getting. To be sure, people always said they felt better by

talking to someone, but it often seemed that a good friend or willing ear could serve as well. Finally, I did come to believe that people could be helped and that indeed a trained professional could be especially helpful. However, in looking back, I now see that what I accepted, at that time, was a puny standard for what I now know is possible. I invite you to read on and share the journey with me as I searched for the Healers Art. Along the way we should become more fully aware of the depth of Gods love for his children. We will observe the extent of his labors to prepare a way for you to ultimately be able to return to live with him, cleansed and purified and fit to share an Eternal life with Him. I will draw from secular learning, as well as from past and present revelations from God through prophets, to find truth. It is really truth we are looking for and we will accept it whenever and wherever it can be found. Before we move on, I believe it would be beneficial to define a few words that we will encounter in the course our journey of discovery. It will be beneficial to have a clear understanding of their meanings. You may also notice the enhanced meaning that the spiritual gives to our understanding. In similar ways secular experience can enhance spiritual understandings. Definitions Faith Dictionary l. Unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence.2. anything believed. 3. Complete trust, confidence or reliance. 4. Allegiance to some person or thing; loyalty.1 Bruce R. McConkie said that the prophet [Joseph Smith] taught that faith is "the first principle in revealed religion, and the foundation of all righteousness." The prophet further affirmed: "Faith isthe moving cause of all action inintelligent beings. And as faith is the moving cause of all action in temporal concerns, so it is in spiritual. But faith is not only the principle of action, but of power also, in all intelligent beings, whether in heaven or on earth.Faith, then is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things; by it they exist, by it they are upheld, by it they are changed, or by it they remain, agreeable to the will of God. Without it there is no power, and with out power there could be no creation nor existence.It is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things."(Lectures on Faith. Pp. 1-8.) Faith is based on truth and is preceded by knowledge. Until a person gains knowledge of the truth he can have no faith. Alma said, "Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." (Alma 32:21; Ether 12:6.) Thus faith is a hope in that which is not seen which is true, and accordingly it can enter the heart of man only after he has received the truth.

To gain faith men must first have knowledge; then as their faith increases, they come to a state where it is supplanted by perfect knowledge; and in any field in which perfect knowledge has been gained "faith is dormant."(Alma 32:21-34.) 2 Humility Dictionary In a favorable sense, assumes a character in which there is an absence of pride and assertiveness.3 Bruce R. McConkie said, All progress in spiritual things is conditioned upon the prior attainment of humility. Pride, conceit, haughtiness, and vainglory are of the world and stand as a bar to the receipt of spiritual gifts. We are commanded to be humble. (D.&C. 105:23; 112:10; 124:97.) It is an essential attribute for all who embark in the service of God (D.&C. 4:6); precedes the acquiring of wisdom from the Spirit (D.&C. 136:32-33); is needed to qualify the righteous to see God (D.&C. 67:10); and without it no one can gain entrance to the kingdom of God hereafter. (2 Ne. 9:42.)4 For me, in its simplicity, humility means to be teachableto be non-defensive and open to learning. In a religious sense it not only means to be eager and thirsting for knowledge, but also for enlightenmentbeing taught by the Spirit. Obedience Dictionary The state, fact, or an instance of obeying, or a willingness to obey; submission.5 Bruce R McConkie said, Obedience is the first law of heaven, the corner stone upon which all righteousness and progression rest. It consists in compliance with divine law, in conformity to the mind and will of Deity, in complete subjection to God and his commands.6 Obedience is a principle of power that is much neglected and often poorly understood. I once interviewed a young lady who served on a mission in Southwestern United States. She had been having some problems adjusting to mission life. In one of our discussions we talked about two very important principles of power humility and obedience. She remarked that she thought that humility was putting yourself down and that obedience was for dogs. It was easy to see why she was having problems in the mission. This principle is better understood by looking at Christs relationship with His Father. He demonstrated that he loved his Father Elohim, the father of us all, as the supreme ruler of the Universe to whom he gave strict obedience. As such, Elohim trusted Jesus completely and entrusted him to create worlds without end as well as this very earth on which we live.7 He became an heir of all God possessed. Had Jesus not proved himself reliable and obedient to Gods will, he would have lost his inheritance as did his brother Lucifer, the former son of the morning.

Jesus has given to man the same charge that he was givento be obedient to Gods will and become joint heirs with Him to receive all that God possesses. What could more powerful than that: And it all depends on our obedience.8 Bringing the principle even closer to home. There are laws established by men to govern themselves. It has been discovered by men in all times and walks of life, singly or in groups, that with out laws to govern behavior, chaos results and then destruction. Today, in regard to traffic management, we depend on reasonable obedience to traffic laws for our very lives. I learned a lesson in obedience when I moved from a city to a rural area. In congested city traffic it is generally considered more necessary to follow traffic rules more strictly than in rural areas with fewer cars on the road. Soon after I moved, within a few short months, I had been pulled over a number of times for slightly exceeding the speed limit (5to 10 mph). Most of the time the infraction was so slight that I was let off with a verbal warning. It had been seven years before that that I received my previous ticket in the city. I found out that there are fewer roads to patrol and fewer cars on the road, so the officers are able to attend to the fewer violations more quickly and more surely. Before I got too close to the point where I could be in trouble, I had to decide to increase my degree of obedience, so I wouldnt lose my driving privilegesmy livelihood depended on it. It took awhile to develop the habit of sticking strictly to the posted speed limits. Liberal use of the cruise control made that task much easier. But once I did I felt a great sense of power, safety and well being. We may notice that our jails and prisons and detention centers are filled with people who have not learned the power of obedience to law. All the aforementioned institutions expend a large part of their operating budgets in training their residents to be obedient. It is ironic that those same residents break the law in the mistaken belief that by doing so they will gain power and control. In the end because of breaking the laws of obedience they usually lose both power and control over their lives. Dissonance Dictionary 1. an inharmonious sound or combination of sounds; discord 2. any lack of harmony or agreement; incongruity 3. Music a cord that sounds incomplete or unfulfilled until resolved to a harmonious cord. Dissonant 1. characterized by or constituting a dissonance; discordant 2. opposing in opinion, temperament, etc.; incompatible; incongruous.9 I use this word to explain the condition of one that has not yet been cleansed and purified through repentance. It is a state of discord that exists between the spirit of man and his mortal body that has not yet been purified. There is a large range of discord depending on the amount of material that is toxic to the persons spirit. Little dissonance may be recognized by mild, but constant stress or conflict. From there, all the way to severe mental or emotional disturbance that severely effects the persons ability to function independently in society. A scriptural

example may be found in James 1:8 where James said, A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Paradigm Dictionary A pattern, example, or model.10 Another dictionary elaborates. An outstandingly clear, or typical example or archetype. 2.A philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school of discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them is formulated.11 In my view, a paradigm is a model of a persons way of seeing his world. It is based on that persons belief and experience of things past and things as they currently are. Regardless of how they became that way, it is that persons reality. No matter what a persons reality is, because it is known, it is more comfortable to him than what is not known. A mans paradigm can apply to something as large as a worldview or way of life, or to something as small as a way of doing a task, or to a tool to accomplish a task. Some examples of a paradigm can be found, for example, in the way food is provided. Once the worldview (paradigm) was that it was provided by nature and was obtained by gathering. At a later date, that view (paradigm) was changed when man learned how to be in control of food production by growing and cultivating his own food and farming came into being. Still later, another shift in the nourishment paradigm occurred when most people in civilized countries worked for money to purchase food in stores. Many of their children, if asked where milk comes from, would say from the store rather than from cows their paradigm, in this respect, is different than was their grandparents. Paradigm Shift At this point, it is necessary to look at the concept of paradigm shift. In 1962 Thomas Kuhn fathered, defined and popularized the concept of paradigm shift. Kuhn argues that scientific advancement is not evolutionary, but rather is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions; and in those revolutions, one conceptual world view is replaced by another. He said that a paradigm shift [is] a change from one way of thinking to another. Its a revolution, a transformation, a sort of a metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change.12 There have been innumerable paradigm shifts in the history of the world. And as has happened so many times before agents of change" are driving new paradigm shifts today. Most recently, the introduction of the personal computer and the Internet have impacted both personal and business environments We are shifting from a mechanistic, manufacturing, industrial society to an organic, service based,

information centered society, and increases in technology will continue to impact globally. Change is inevitable. Its the only true constant. He further concludes that change is difficult, so human beings will always resist change. But nevertheless it will go on. As we understand the changes taking place, we all can have some positive impact on the nature of the change outcomes. The changes coming up with the emerging global economy can have a large impact on political America. With the loss of jobs being exported to countries of weaker economies, many are resisting and predicting doom. This change is just as inevitable as the loss of jobs of the carriage makers and blacksmiths of old. Yet even more jobs were provided to build the cars of today. Yes, new skills are required. Thus, we need to prepare ourselves for the new information society and get on with it. A few years ago I was privileged to watch an educational film on the concept of the paradigm and paradigm shift. The thing that stood out most in my mind was a story about how the quartz watch was developed by a Swiss citizen. He tried to interest his countrymen in his ideabut with out success. The Swiss were the preeminent producers of watches in the world. The Swiss watches boasted the finest construction and skilled workmanship with interconnecting cogs, wheels and jeweled movements. As you might imagine, their paradigm of watches was made up of cogs, wheels and jeweled movements. They were not able to see past their paradigm of what a watch was supposed to be. The Swiss maker of the quartz watch showed his idea to the Americans and Japanese and the rest is history. It is the Americans and Japanese who are on the forefront of watch making now, and you will rarely if ever see a watch that does not say quarts on its face. There are a number of important paradigm shifts now in progress that will bare careful scrutiny, as they will have an important impact on the worldand you in particular. One is the mental health, counseling paradigm, where intellectual understanding (insight) is the preeminent style of treatment. This style will shift to experiential, feeling therapies where pain is released through (reliving). As ever, talk counseling will continue, but not under the guise of healing. It will be for solving problems that require discussion and cooperation. Another paradigm shift that is in progress and will take place on a global level, is the shift from people being willing to be content with shallow, momentary pleasure sensations to requiring and attaining deep, fulfilling, everlasting joy. This shift will be inherent in the shift where righteousness will be re-enthroned as the millennial life style. War, sickness and criminal behavior will become a thing of the past that will only be vaguely remembered as fables of antiquity. Now come with me as I share with you how I became aware of a truly powerful therapy.

Notes

1. Gutalnik, David B. (Ed.) Webster's New World Dictionary. Second College Ed., New York, NY, Simon and Schuster, 1984, p. 503. 2. McConkie, Bruce R. Mormon Doctrine. 2nd Ed. Salt Lake City, Utah, Bookcraft, 1966, p. 261-267. 3. Op. Cit., p. 684. 4. Op. Cit., p. 370. 5. Op. Cit., p. 980. 6. Op. Cit., p. 539-541. 7. John 1:1-14; Moses 1:32-33. 8. Romans 8:16-17. 9. Gutalnik, David B. (Ed.) Webste4r's New World Dictionary. Second College Ed., New York, NY, Simon and Schuster, 1984, p. 408. 10. Ibid., p. 1029. 11. Encyclopedia Britannica 2002, Standard Edition CD. 12. Quote of Thomas Kuhn (on Internet).

Chapter 2
How I Became Aware of a Truly Powerful Therapy
In about 1974 I met Dalton. He had recently come to Salt Lake City from Florida seeking therapy in the capital of Mormonism. He was a Latter-day Saint, thirty-one years of age and on Social Security for emotional disability. I met him while I was still working at the L.D.S. Hospital Outpatient Mental Health Clinic. Soon after, however, I went to work for the L.D.S. Social Services where I continued to see members of the LDS church referred for counseling by their Bishops. He followed me to LDS Social Services to continue his counseling with me. It was obvious that Dalton was bright, though among his symptoms was depression and inability to function well enough to meet his own needs. Another stated symptom was that he suffered from same sex attraction. He had tried most kinds of therapy commonly practiced and some not commonly practiced. He had been on psychotropic drugs and had been in mental hospitals several times. Currently he was unable to hold a job and was on Social Security for disability. Though near the completion of a college degree, he was unable to complete his schooling because of his problems. At the time, he also had been disfellowshipped from the Church and later had taken a drug overdose that nearly ended his life. In my early contacts, I learned that at his sickest, a local Clinical Psychologist tested him and assigned him an I.Q. of 150genius starts at 140 and up. One of our early meetings, after our relationship was established, he shared with me a type of therapy, he had been using with acquaintances, that was based on what he called the Black-Hole Theory. He said that everybody has a black hole in their mind that they need the help of a therapist to enter into and explore and then safely return. He wanted to find a therapist he could trust to teach his therapy to, so that he could be taken into his black hole and be safely returned. He felt that that would be the key to his own healing. I listened to what he had to say. He taught me an accessing technique he had developed to by-pass conscious defenses or blocking. The way it worked was for the client to act as a go-between between the sender (therapist) and the important images in the clients mind. The client would become focused on his function of accurately repeating the therapists words to the image in his mind. . Then observing intently, so as to accurately receive the answer and accurately repeat it to the therapist. The client would become so focused in this process that the true answer would come out uncensored by his own defenses. I was impressed with this technique and recognized it immediately as a similar, but superior way of doing the chairwork technique as used by Fritz Pearls in Gestalt Therapy.

Another thing Dalton did, that left an impression with me, was that he came up with a name for his therapy. He called it Promethean Adjustment after Prometheus of the Greek fable. According to the World Book Encyclopedia. Prometheus (meaning forethought) and his brother Epimetheus (afterthought) were assigned by the Gods to give the animals the powers they needed. Epimetheus worked hard at the task, but when it was mans turn, there was no gifts left. Prometheus took pity on the helplessness of primitive man. He stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man. Zeus was so angered that he caused Prometheus to be chained to Mount Caucasus. A Vulture came every day to tear at his liver and every night the liver grew again. Prometheus suffered for thousands of years until Hercules came at last and killed the Vulture and set Prometheus free.1 Before I became skilled enough to experiment with Daltons therapy something else came along that caught my attention even more. Something New I had been seeing four men in a series of individual and group therapy sessions around that time. They were all acquainted with each other and their problems were interrelated. They had a similar problemthey were all homosexuals. Three were in their twenties and the fourth was in his late thirties. Three of the men were LDS and one of the younger men was Catholic. An interesting element in their relationship was that the older man was the only married man in the group and had been in the gay scene much longer than the others had been. He took the role of the elder statesman; the one who had been over the dusty road. He was affirming to the others that from his experience the gay life was a dead-end road and he was pushing for them to seek treatment. He was married and had five children. He was not living at home, but kept in touch with the family to do what he could for them. He had made numerous attempts to break the hold that same sex attraction had on him, but he failed every time. Once, he thought he had it beat after undergoing psychoanalysis, so he returned to live with his wife and family. It didnt take long to find out that once again he had failed. Still he didnt want to give up hope. One of my goals was to help the men to come to terms with getting treatment for their homosexuality. One day two of the men gave me a book called The Primal Scream by Arthur Janov and asked me to read it.2 Shortly after this, three members of the group decided to get treatment. I was happy about this, but was soon disappointed when they elected to get their treatment from Dr. Alan Jeppsen, a local psychiatrist, at a cost of two thousand dollars a person. They explained that only he, in our area, treated along the same lines as the treatment outlined in The Primal Screamcalled Primal Therapy. They had great hope that Primal Therapy would help them. Though my ego was dented somewhat I resigned myself to be patient. I expected that within a year they would be back poorer but wiser.

10

Approximately a year later, Barry contacted me to share his progress report. He indicated that one member of the group decided not to enter treatment with Dr. Jeppsen, another started but dropped out, but that he and Kent followed through. He said that the past year had been an exciting one and he was very happy with the results of his therapy so far. The therapy was worth the cost. In fact he thought it was worth ten times more than what he paid. He said that at this point all homosexual feelings were not completely gone, but that the tremendous compulsion to act out was gone and he felt he could now choose whether to act crazy or not. He said that Kent had experienced the same results. These reported results left me with no alternative but to examine more closely the book they had earlier referred to me and which had lain unopened on my desk for the past year. I soon read the book and was sufficiently intrigued that I referred the book to Dalton Ellis, the client I had been earnestly trying to help for a solid year with little success. After Dalton read The Primal Scream he was excited about it. He thought the therapy described in the book was what he had been looking for all of his life and hoped we might be able to find out more about it. When I talked with Barry earlier, I was asked if I would like to visit him and Kent at their home and they would demonstrate the therapy. I asked if I could bring a friend with me and they agreed. When I told Dalton of this invitation he quickly agreed to go with me and I made an appointment for the demonstration. The Day Arrived After Dalton and I arrived at a home in the suburb of Salt Lake that the two men rented, we exchanged pleasantries and chatted somethen the demonstration began. Kent took his place on the living room floor lying on a carpet. His head was resting comfortably on a pillow while Barry sat in a chair to the side of Kent and where he could closely observe. There was also a box of Kleenex nearby. Kent closed his eyes and then there was silence. Dalton and I were sitting where we could also observe closely. The silence went on for a while, but was hardly noticed because my eyes were closely fixed on catching whatever interaction might occur. Before long I noticed some slight facial movements. Barry called Kents attention to the movements. As moments quickly passed, it became obvious that Kent had accessed some memories. They seemed painful to him. Barry said little, but encouraged him to stay with the feeling. He started going through some wrestling motions and seemed to be engaged in a mighty struggle with someone. He seemed to be very upset and cried and pleaded with someone that seemed to be overwhelming to him. When he was finished and was once again at peace, he told us that he was wrestling with his father and was made to feel humiliated and frustrated. There were a lot of tears shed. Now we knew what the Kleenex was for. Then it was Barrys turn and they traded places. The process was much the same, but the content was different. It seems that Barry relived an episode in his life when he was five years old and a nine year old neighbor girl tricked him and
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pushed him through a side door of a garage and shut the door. The garage was being used as a chicken coop and his abrupt and noisy entrance had frightened the chickens. He was screaming and the chickens were flying all over the confined quarters escalating this frightening experience for him as well as for them. His screams became quite unsettling to me. I thought the neighbors would hear his screams and investigate. After about thirty to forty-five minutes, Barry calmed down and explained what had taken place and what significance that experience had played in his life. I was amazed at what I had seen but the experience was quite unnerving to me. I stood up and was making movements to leave when one of the fellows said, I thought your friend was planning to do a session. They both enjoined Dalton to take the floor. He was willing to do so and had prepared by fasting earlier in the day, so he assumed the prone position and placed his head comfortably on the pillow. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation with his eyes closed, he started getting into something quite different than the others did. He was completely silent, but started to slowly wiggle and inch himself around the roomhead first. I didnt understand what he was doing, but just sat there spellbound observing his strange movements. In what seemed like an eternity, Dalton finally finished what he was doing and after our goodbys were said we left for home. On the way home he explained that it felt like he was re-experiencing his birth. That seemed amazing to me. I had never seen anything like that before. For days after, I went through what I could describe as a cross between shock and wonderment. The experience was much on my mind. Dalton and I decided that this process should be looked into further. He confided that this process could be what he had been looking for all his life. We decided to learn more about this strange process. Needless to say, I gained a great interest in re-reading the book left me by the men we had met with. In the days ahead, I read with increased focus The Primal Scream and Dalton and I prepared to venture further into his treatment using this strange and impelling methodology. I found The Primal Scream to be a fascinating account about how Arthur Janov Ph.D. happened into finding out about this method of treatment and went on to develop a treatment center in California. He called the method Primal Therapy and the center was called the Primal Institute. In the book he discussed the way they went about structuring the program, some of the basic principles underlying the process, as well as experiences of some of his early clients. The book gave some hints about techniques, but there seemed to be fewer of those than I would have wished. It turned out to be one of the most significant books I had ever read in my life. Before long we decided to put into practice what we had been reading. From the beginning we had amazingly significant experiences. Dalton plumbed the depths of his earlier life. The process seemed easy to use if the client was ready. I would generally darken the room leaving a dim light on. Dalton would lie on the floor (on a deep pile carpet) and rested his head on a comfortable pillow. We found that a box of tissues was always necessary. I would encourage some relaxation and some deep, regular breathing, asking him to notice his

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feelings. Once he could identify the feeling that stood out, I would help him focus on the feeling and let the feeling be experienced more fully until he was emersed in the feeling. I was careful not to tell him what to feel, but only to have him follow his own internal experience and let it intensify until it would seem to take over and thus set the agenda for the current session. It seemed that each new session brought significant learnings to both Dalton and me. One of the first things I learned was that the standard fifty minute or one-hour session was not enough time for this type of experience. It generally took about two hours to conduct what I called a feeling session. It took time for the preliminaries, then the main feeling session and then at least fifteen minutes for the client to talk over the experience and explain the meaning to me. Thus, the clients feelings dictated the length of the session and not the clock. The next thing I learned was that the client is in fact his own therapist and the therapist is a facilitatoran important roll but not the paramount one. The one in the helping role should know what needs to be done to heal and what is possible and how to help that happen, but the client must make the choice to feel and help to guide the process by his experience and knowledge of himself. It takes great courage to face ones demons. I remember being somewhat surprised to find that some practices and concepts that were held sacred in the practice of standard therapy were quite silly, untrue or unworkable in the new (to me) therapy. I continued working with Dalton on a regular basis at least once or twice a week. His progress was so fast, at least in comparison to the almost non-existent progress in the previous year, that I even had to think about how he would manage when he could no longer qualify for disability benefits from Social Security. His depression started to lift early in the process. He had innumerable symptoms besides the depression. He continued acting out with men and told me that at one time, before he came to Salt Lake, that he use to masturbate as much as eighteen times a day. He said he was so compulsively driven that he would even do it with a flaccid penis. That compulsion was now lessening markedly. In the meantime, I started to introduce the therapy to other clients. I referred to the therapy as Feeling or Deep Feeling Therapy. Come with me into the next chapter to read more of their experiences.

Notes
1. Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, Prometheus. The World Book Encyclopedia. Vol. 15, Merchandise Mart Plaza, Chicago, Ill., 1969, p. 719. 2. Janov, Arthur, PhD., The Primal Scream. Dell Publishing Co., Inc., New York, NY, 1970.

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Chapter 3
More dramatic examples of healing
Damon The first such attempt happened with a client who I shall call Damon. I had been seeing him and his wife Judy for marital problems. After a number of sessions they stopped coming. One day, Im not sure what prompted me, but I decided to call Damon to see what the problem was. He seemed to gratefully acknowledge that my timing was a miracle. He said that he was on the verge of committing adultery with a female, fellow employeeit could happen any day, but as yet had not. He said he felt my call had saved him from following through with it. We arranged to meet for some individual sessions. Damon was a Korean War veteran. He was tall, very powerfully built and was into very masculine hobbies such as Karate, mountain climbing and riding jeeps in rough country etc. He was full of anger, but had managed to keep it under control for twenty years. He also had a pronounced stutter. On our first individual session, after getting background and talking for most of the sessionwith ten or fifteen minutes left in the sessionI said, innocently, Tell me something about your father. There was a silence for a few moments, then, to my surprise, I noticed his eyes were closed and his hands were tightly gripping the arms of the wooden chair he was sitting in. He started to spontaneously say, as if talking to his father, Why didnt you love me? Why didnt you love me? If you didnt love me you could have at least faked it. Any one would have at least done that for a dog. All I could do was sit in silence. I hadnt intended to do a feeling session and now the hour had come to an end. After bringing the session to a close and making an appointment for the next week, I sent him on his way. The next week when he returned, in a somewhat good-natured, but firm way, he let me know that he was upset at me after our session last week. After he left that session he had to work harder than ever to keep from punching out people on his way home. We made some plans to help him deal with his anger in some feeling sessions. In his first feeling session the following week. I had him get in touch with his stress and feel it as strongly as he could. At that time I didnt understand the importance that relaxation played in smoothly accessing important issues in the mind. He started to shake strongly. It was as if electricity was surging through his entire body. This was startling to me, but I encouraged him on in the hope that he would break through what seemed to be an extremely important conflict or issue to him. At the peak of his shaking he started to shout loudly. Im not a girl! Im not a girl! Im a boy! that continued for some time, but slowly softened

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until he reached a state of calmness and tranquility. By this time he was completely exhausted. He seemed to be in a state of contemplation. Soon he wanted to share his experience with me. He said that when he was a little boy, his mother had wanted a little girl, so she dressed him on many occasions like a little girl. He said that he was into his experience to such an extent that he was there again experiencing the old feelings in all the exquisite details. He said that he now knew that those experiences have had an enormous influence on much of the way he has conducted his life. He said that his drive to engage in macho activities is largely a way of proving to himself and others that he is not a girl. He recognized his vulnerability to being unfaithful to his wife is also related to that fear. He said that he has often visualized women falling for him in droves because he is so masculine and manly. He reasoned that if he is attractive to girls he must be a real man and not a girl. This awareness seemed to be profound to him as well as to me. In another session he dealt with his mother sticking her head in an oven and threatening to gas herself to death. Following a number of other sessions, Damon made the observation that he felt like he was becoming an old man. He said that he used to be able to work sixteen, seventeen hours a day non-stop. Now he had to rest on occasion throughout the day. It seems that before, he was able to ignore the cues his body sent out that said he needed a rest. Now the cues were felt loud and clear. His nervous energy slowed down to a normal pace, adding to the sensation temporarily that he was getting old or slowing down. Unfortunately, he decided to stop therapy at this point because as he said, I am happy with how things are going for me now. I had hoped he would continue for a while. I expected the next good news for him with the slowing down would have been the cessation of his stuttering. Between the sessions I was having with more clients and through reading more of Dr. Janovs books, I found that experiences I was having with my clients were similar to the ones he was having. I was hopeful that he would share more of the techniques that he only hinted at in his books. I found his books to be a valuable contribution to my knowledge, and I believe to the world, and in fact over the years I have purchased and read every one that I knew of from The Primal Scream(1961) to The Biology of Love(2000). They have an honored place in my library. Preparation for a Feeling Session I would prepare a client in advance as to what to expect in a Feeling session. When the client seemed to be a candidate for the therapy and expressed a desire to enter into the in-depth healing that the process entailed, we would work out the details of how they could manage the time and commitment needed to do their work. The cost was not a problem because treatment was not being charged for those referred by their Bishops at that time. Part of the preparation was to have them bring someone responsible for driving them home after the session.

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Each session would start by chatting a few minutes before having them lie down on a thick carpeted floor and resting their head on a pillow. I always had a box of tissues handy. I recognized that the feeling sessions were some kind of an emotional cleansing and that tearing always accompanied the cleansing. I would start by helping them relax and have them observe inside themselves for any thing that might be going on in their head or minda thought, feeling or a picture. Sometimes they would say that thoughts seemed to be spinning in their head. I would remind them that their mind was in the process of selecting what they were ready for and what was needful for their healing. I told them that soon the spinning would slow down and they would know what the issue was that they were to work on. I told them that they would in time learn to trust themselves. When they found that something, I would encourage them to focus and attend to it, letting the picture become more detailed and letting the feeling build in intensity, but letting it go where it needed to go. Before long the client would seem to be in a process that had a life of its own. I became almost superfluous to the process. So I became an astute observer and took copious notesprocess recordings. I noted that many phrases and themes would be repeated giving me ample time to write down what the client was saying. Thus, I became increasingly the student. Sometimes I made tape recordings, but found them tedious because of the repeated words and phrases; however, I never was bored attending a live session because of the emotional content and the healing I knew to be taking place. The sessions were always different and each client had their own unique way of processing their feelings; however, there were many commonalities. For instance, most sessions ran within the two hours previously mentioned. Each session had a theme dealing with something painful in the clients life. When that theme was processed or experienced fully, it was as if the pain was exhausted and peace replaced the pain. The client would generally be physically exhausted as well; thus, the need for someone to drive them home. The clients would have a need to share the many insights they had received concerning themselves and their problems. I found that the talking part after the session helped the client solidify the gains made in the sessionit was very important. In the discussions before sessions, clients would tell me about changes in their thinking, actions and relationships following previous sessions. I noticed I was always filled with a sense of awe and amazement at the power of the process for changing and healing people. At the same time I found myself doubting and wondering if what I was seeing was really true. In part, because people kept coming back with new issuessome more painful than the ones they started with. I did notice, however, that once an issue was resolved, they never had to deal with the same one again. Janovs books helped a lot to understand that, and many other dynamics of the Feeling process. I found that people are filled with a lot more pain than they can possibly imagine. I noticed that when dealing with an issue the pain of that issue was stored sequentially. When one is dealing with loss, for example, they will deal with losses they have experienced over a lifetime usually going from present loss to

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earlier and earlier losses. When the pain of those losses is exhausted and released the pain of the loss is greatly diminished. Hope and an ability to deal appropriately with the losses, replaces the total devastation of the losses. Some problems were resolved in a single session. For example, a lady, who I never met, called me on the phone one day. I took time to explain the basic concepts of deep feeling therapy to her. A few months later I received a phone call from her. She was crying and seemed desperate. Her boyfriend had left her and she was very upset. I asked if she remembered what we stalked about previously. She said she did. I asked her if she was in a position where I could help her through this crisis and if she wanted me to do it. The answer was yes! to both questions. She had a phone by her bed and she was by herself. I had her lay down and asked her what she was feeling at the moment. She said she was feeling loss. So I encouraged her to relax and let herself feel the feeling of loss. Shortly, she was deeply into loss and I could tell she was into the automatic processing mode. Then, I told her that I would hang up the phone so she could process, but I would be near the other end of the phone and when she was through processing I wanted her to call me back so we could talk In about an hour and a half she called back and said, I have just been through the most amazing experience. Then she related her tale. She said that she went through the loss of her husband, who had died two years earlier, and the loss of a brother who had committed suicide when he was sixteen years old. She related losses going back through her life to earlier and earlier times. She even related losing a portion of her finger in a lawn mower accident as a child. She said, You know with all those losses I realized I was never alone. I sensed that Jesus was with me and I know He is with me now. In the conversation that followed, she told me that her husband died two years earlier and she had not fully grieved for his loss. Part of the problem with her boyfriend was that she was now starting to grieve for her dead husband and the boyfriend didnt know how to deal with it. She said she understood how hard it must be for him and would understand if he felt the need to leave her. She didnt want him to go, but if he decided to leave for good she could handle it. I learned later that she did talk to her boyfriend and helped him understand and they were able to resume their relationship. Young Man With Anger The following story illustrates this pattern. The fellow involved was married and father of two children. They came to the agency for marriage counseling, because the fellow was always upset at his wife and was very complaintive. They started to work with another therapist who said the fellow was a Character Disorder (one who had hardened his feeling) and would be hard to help. He asked if I would like to give a try at helping him. I agreed and an appointment was set. In our first visit I got acquainted. At the end of our visit, I asked him to notice during the next week what he was feeling just before he got angry and report the result next week. At our next visit he told me he didnt catch all of the times he got angry, but he caught about thirty percent of them. I didnt ask him how many times he got
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angry, but it must have been a lot to use percentages in his report. He said he felt afraid just before he became angry. I asked if he would like to deal with the issue using the feeling process which I had previously explained. He said he would. So I had him lie down and I proceeded to help him engage the feeling of fear and start to process it. Shortly, he was into it and expressed great anger toward his mother. He shouted, hit the floor with his hands. He railed at his mother calling her a viper, snake, full of poison and doing great harm to her children. This went on for the better part of an hour. The anger evolved into hurt. When he finally ran down, there was a short space of silence before he asked, Why would my mother treat me the way she did? To this I replied simply, The answer lies within you. After a few more moments of silence, he said, She was doing the best she could. She didnt get what she needed when she was growing up. In our discussion following, he said he felt love for his mother for the first time he could remember. He said he realized they were fellow travelers in the world. He always thought his mother should take care of everything, so he would never have to hurtof course that didnt happenso he blamed her. He now recognizes that it never could have happened and more importantly it never should have. Concerning his wife, he said that when he met her he thought she was about perfect. He believed that with her help he could probably succeed in life. As the days came and went in their marriage, he noticed that she was not perfect. Whenever he saw her come up short of perfection, he felt anxious. He noticed that she had some needs of her own and he didnt feel he had strength enough to give to her and still take care of his own needs. So, if the house was a little cluttered with kids toys, when he came home from work, or if supper was not prepared on time he would get angry with her. After his break-through, his attitude toward his wife was much improved. Another Thing Learned While Helping The Young Man One thing his wife told me, was that at dinnertime her husband would watch closely when the food was dished out and if it even looked like he was not getting as good a serving as his children he would get very upset. I understood this better, and so did he, when he had a session in which he relived a scene from when he was a baby. His mother feed him on a schedule and he often got hungry before the schedule said it was time to eat. He, the baby, only knew he was hungry and sensed that he could die if he didnt eat. This left him hypersensitive to being food deprived, or set a prototypic belief (as Janov taught) about food deprivation. We were better able to understand his childish reaction. It was a good example of the fact that when pain is laid down, no matter what age, the pain and emotions experienced in repression is age appropriate. More will be said about this phenomenon later on. More Healing Examples

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As time went on, I noticed that clients who seem to have the more troublesome symptoms seemed to be the easiest ones to help with the new deep feeling therapy. Ones that would generally be referred to psychiatrists for medicationones with anxieties, phobias, obsessions, compulsions, panic disorders, etc. I realized that the more extreme and apparent the symptom was the closer to the surface the pain was and thus, the easier it was to access. The healing process continued to work predictably. It seemed to have a certain mathematical precision. The more sessions a client went through the better they got. If a client did the work they achieved the results. At the time a client dealt with a certain issue, it might be baffling as to why that certain issue at that time. It was only after the fact, that it would become obvious, the purpose for the order in which issues were dealt with in the eventual successful outcome of the clients healing. I came to realize that the complex mental entanglements, in a clients mind, is like a ball of string that gets all tangled up and hopelessly enmeshed when tossed in a heap and mixed up. Its almost impossible to untangle, yet the string is attached to itself and can be untangled if its lead is followed carefully and patiently without taking short cuts. I could see that no man alive or dead, no matter how smart or learned, could possibly know how to untangle a troubled mind by his own judgement. Yet the troubled mind could successfully and unerringly become untangled by following its own lead . We have known for a long time that the healing of wounds on the body was built in. That when flesh is damaged, man (doctor) only has the power to clean the wound and sew it back together and protect it from germs, but the healing of the wound is built in. The impact was great when I realized that the human mind is also capable of self-healingwhat a marvelous design. Back to the Ongoing Saga of Dalton In the mean time, Daltons progress continued. His compulsions continued to lessen and his depression lifted more and more. He became increasingly more involved in doing his own therapy at home and decided to return to school to work on his bachelors degree in Psychology. He started to notice that things were changing in his sexual interests and practices. The changes seemed to be related to the things he dealt with in his feeling sessions. On one occasion, he told me he was feeling less attracted to men, but was still drawn to viewing men in standup urinals in restrooms. Then he had a feeling session at home in which he was on a hunting trip with his father and was watching with interest while his father took a leak in the woods. After that session he was no longer drawn to watching men urinate. One symptom after another would leave until he found himself no longer interested in men as sex partners and moving more and more toward women.

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Eventually Dalton met a young lady and they married. He continued his schooling, got off his Social Security Disability benefit and got a part-time job in a floral shop, and managed an apartment complex. He continued helping friends. I considered Dalton and his wife my friends. I often thought that if I ever went into private practice I would like to do so with him as a colleague. Back to the Four Gay Men After the dramatic introduction to feeling therapy given me by the former clients with same sex attraction, we kept in contact. Shortly after that experience at their home, I asked the older of the two that had continued treatment with Dr. Alan Jeppsen, how he felt about his progress. I remember he said that before treatment he felt compulsively driven to seek sexual relief, but at the time I asked, he felt the compulsion diminished to the extent that he could now decide whether or not to act out. The other man shared the same observation. That helped me understand that the more pain that drove a symptom the more compulsive the acting out or in there was. Also the more compulsive the behavior the less choice a man had. Thus, a man could eventually lose his agency under the effects of enough painan awful thought. As time passed, the men continued their treatment with Dr. Jeppsen. One day I received a call from Jerry, the older of the two, who said that because of his decision to spend less time with his wife until he could finally be certain of his cure of the same sex compulsion, his wife had become upset. She was now on the brink of terminating their marriage and he wanted some help in winning her back. He said he knew he was now free of that problem, but wanted me to evaluate and decide if I could meet with him and his wife and help them reconcile. We arranged to meet and talkwhich we did. I felt that he had indeed resolved the problem. At least he had been honest with me and could not have made up the details he did with out having experienced them. I made an appointment to meet with the man and his wife. I remember the meeting well. I said few words to his wife and let him be his own advocate. I sat in awe as he spoke from the heart. There was no manipulation, desperation, pleading or coercion. He simply shared himself with her. She could see for herself and feel the changes that had evolved in him since he had been involved in therapyshe took him back. Later, I learned they moved to a small town in a neighboring state. In a ten year follow-up, I learned they were still together and happy. The younger single fellow, Damon, got married and moved to Phoenix, Arizona and I never have had contact since. An Experience With a Married Couple A couple in their forties came for marriage counseling in about 1976

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This was the second marriage for both. They had had a fair amount of money, as he owned a good small business. They were accustomed to buying five thousand-dollar fur coats and five thousand-dollar dining room sets. They had been seeing a psychiatrist for marriage counseling for the past three years. By the time they came to see me, their funds were getting strained. They decided to pursue counseling through LDS Social Services because we were not charging at that time. I spent nearly a year with them doing conventional marriage counseling with little success I might add. Finally, out of desperation or inspiration, I dont know, I decided to teach them about the principles of feeling therapy. After some minimal instruction, I asked them if they would be willing to submit themselves to an individual feeling sessionboth agreed. My first session was with Mrs. Robinson. I remember little about the session except that when she first started to access her feelings, she described seeing a large black hole that felt scary to approach. After helping her to move past that block, she dealt with a lot of things and cried a lot and had a successful session. In the discussion following the session, Mary said she realized she had a lot of unfinished business to do. She realized her pain was her own and that she had been dumping it on Richard. Later, I had a session with Mr. Robinson. He seemed to access easily and during his session he took a trip back to his earlier childhood. In the discussion following his experience, he said he relived a time when he was young and was being taught by an older gentleman a love of art and learned that he was a gifted artist. He could see that because of his fears, he had neglected his gift and instead invested himself in his business to make money and be secure. After those initial sessions I asked each one if they would be willing to let their spouse to sit in on one of their next sessions. They both agreed on condition that their mate would be understanding and supportive. In setting up the sessions, I had the one in the observer role sit in a far corner and silently observe. The accessor took the usual place in the center of the room with a pillow and tissues. The open and undefended accessing of pain had a noticeable impact on the compassion of each toward each other. The sessions both went well. The change that happened to both was dramatic as well as gratifying. Immediately, they both stopped the constant battling that had characterized the previous year (and possibly three years before that). They both recognized where their pain was coming from and each took ownership of his or her own pain. They now recognized that the pain was the enemy not each other. Furthermore, they now knew what had to be done to eliminate the pain. They decided to support one another as they dealt with their respective pains, instead of being antagonists. At that time, they had been separated for about two years, but planned to have regular dates. They wanted me to help them to devise a plan they could follow to achieve their goals of healing and crafting a better marriage. To that end they invited me to their home.

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They had a nice home. They said they planned to take turns doing feeling sessions on their dates. They had a comfortable room with a couch and what looked like a large, beautiful lambskin rug on the floor. It was planned that the person accessing would lie on the white skin. The helper would sit on the couch and coach or assist the other as needed. Mrs. Robinson said that her first husband had been an airplane pilot in the Second World War and had been killed in action over Japan. She had never dealt with his death. She had a bundle of his letters that she kept and had put away because she knew that someday she would have to deal with them. Up until now, she could never deal with his death, because she felt it would be too sensitive a subject for her the new husband. Richard could see how important it was for June to grieve the loss of her first husband, so that his memory would not be an unknown irritant in their marriage. Richard said he knew that he should not neglect his artistic gift. He showed me some of his workpaintings and wood sculpturesand he did, indeed, have a talent. I dont remember having any other sessions with them after that. I did encounter them two times after that. One, three years later, I saw Richard on a bus in downtown Salt Lake. He told me that he and June were still together and doing fine. He said that they went each year to the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City and said how much they loved the Festivals. Sometime later, I saw in the local newspaper a full-page write up on Richard. An old mansion from later pioneer times was being renovated as part of a downtown project to build a series of new buildings called the Triad Center. In the parks surrounding the new buildings, it was decided to renovate the Devereau House as a centerpiece of the project. Richard had been selected and commissioned to do the wood art on the stately old mansion. This mansion had been a show place in its youth, but had fallen on hard times and was used for many years as a storage place for a construction company. That was to change. To achieve its former elegance required the touch of an artist, Richardquite an honor. About seven years after the bus contact, I was contacted by the Robinson to see if they would qualify to take in an Indian woman into their home for foster care. In the process of the investigation I learned that the Robinson were still happily married and still managing financially. I did not learn how long they had to continue their feeling session dates to achieve the success they wanted. A Hard Lesson Learned One day I met a man. He was forty years old and single. He was a fine looking man. I learned he had a Masters Degree in Library Science and had been employed by the Genealogical Society of the LDS Church. That is, had been employed. His employment was recently terminated because of serious emotional problems. I shall call him George.

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I learned quickly that the man was full of pain, resulting in many symptoms. He was fearful, anxious, had many phobias and obsessions that interfered with his healthy functioning. After we discussed his problems and treatment alternatives, he decided to engage in deep feeling work He was only on the floor for a moment when an avalanche of anger and rage poured out. He shouted out desires to kill, rip, gouge, and rape and generally do serious harm to a female person. It generally seemed to be directed toward his mother. It was hard to imagine this diatribe of rage coming from this seemingly quiet and well mannered, educated gentleman. That was only the beginning of what was to become weeks and then months of rage and resolution. Finally, as he moved to deeper stages of cleansing and healing, he also did much work with Dalton outside the officethey already knew each other. As George healed and normalized, most of the previous neurotic symptoms disappeared. Most of my future contacts with him happened by chance. For instance, while I was using a local library near my home, I was working on my doctoral dissertation, I encountered George and learned that he was employed there full-time as a Librarian. He told me that he was doing well and had married. We had frequent contacts during that time. Again I had occasional contacts with him when I attended Sunday church services on visits with my parents George was a member of their ward, an active participant. He said that he still had some problems, but had resolved about eighty-five percent of them. He remained happily married, but he and his wife had decided not to have children because of their age. The last time I visited with George was in the Fall of 2000. He was working for the same library system, but had transferred to be nearer his home. He said he was getting ready to retire in the near future. The plug had been "pulled" on this potential (though fortunatly not actual) murder, rapist and instead he was able to fulfill his potential as a productive, husband, churchman and employee and was now ready for a happy retirement. This took me back in time twenty-five years to a younger man I saw after working with George. His name was Arthur Gary Bishop. He seemed like a nice fellow that was attracted to young boys. He showed me photos of some male nephews of his. He liked them and gave them presents. He gave them bicycles and such gifts that seemed "over the wall". His sister became upset and set limits for him with her children. I saw him a few times, but before I was able to work with him seriously (feeling work) some powers that be got involved and recommended or ordered him to get counseling with another agency. They told him they did not think that LDS Social Services could do the job. I forgot about Arthur Gary until some years later when he became quite infamous as the murderer of four local young boys. He molested them and then killed them. What wasted liveshis victims and himself. He was later executed at the Utah State Prison at Draper, Utah for the boys murders.

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I guess he must have fallen through the cracks and was somehow lost at the previous place he was to have received therapy. Other Important learning Experiences Another client that I started seeing at the LDS Hospital followed me to LDS Social Services. She was a married woman about thirty years of age with three children. She had been involved in medical care and psychological counseling for many years. She was only about five feet tall and very obese. When we started Feeling Therapy it soon became apparent that very little of her pain had been resolved with standard therapy. The hurt and pain of many years started to gush out in a manner that had began to be familiar to me. She began with hurts of more recent origin. When she was in grade school the other kids made her fun of her. Often when some boys saw her they shouted Eek a freak! Eek a freak! This was of course very painful to her. When her mother heard about what was going on, she insisted on talking to Melbas class and getting the offenders to stop. Melba pleaded with her mother not to do it, but nothing she could say would dissuade her. The teasing she received after mothers lecture was horrendous. The pain associated with mother was even greater than that connected to the hazing of her fellow students. She went deeper and dealt with pain related to her father. He had molested her. She found out that one of the main reasons she got so heavy was to obscure her breasts in fat. She had a hard time losing weight because every time she lost weight and her body became more defined she became conscious of her father leering at her and the weight came back on. Going even deeper. Melba said that when she was born she had a dislocated back but hadnt been bothered by it through her life. I hardly took notice of that statement at the time. One day she came to the office for a session holding her back and limping with pain. For a moment, I thought to myself, It cant be! Can this be related to her dislocated back at birth? We were about there in our feeling work. Into the session, my client got into the pain of her back. It seemed to go on for a long time until I said to her, It would be better to feel all the pain for a short time than almost all the pain forever. After a few moments she told me to hold her hand so she could position herself. She recognized that she had been favoring her back, so as to relieve some of the pain. When she was repositioned, she let out a blood-curdling scream, for what seemed a very long time, but was actually only a few seconds. She lay there for a few quiet moments. Then she rolled her right leg over the left leg nearly touching the floor with her toe, then lifted her left leg over her right leg, again nearly touching the floor. Then she jumped to her feet in almost disbelief at the loss of the pain. She said, That is amazing! I learned even more through this poignant experience, how important it is to feel all the pain of an experience in order to release it from repression. Other sessions eventually took Melba to experience her birth. On one such occasion, when she was just born and was presented to her mother, her mother got

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a distressed look on her face and said Thats not my baby! When her mother finally held her, she did so in a cold, stiff manner. When my client discussed her experience, she shuddered in remembrance and said, Weve got to get to the women of this church and tell them that if they have a baby they better want the baby. And when they hold the baby they need to talk to it lovingly. The babies wont understand the words, but they will understand the love and safety they feel. One of the bonuses Melba received, for her work, was that a life long problem of ulcerative colitis was also spontaneously cured. JohnA Man on Psychotropic Drugs I received another important learning when I helped another man I will call John. He was the husband of another client of mine. He seemed a little strange, but did not seek counseling at the time his wife did. He was an inspector for the County. One day, while watching a General Conference of his church on television, he became overwhelmed with guilt feelings. It seems that after doing one of his inspection jobs he had gone into a nearby bar and watched the performance of nearly nude go-go girls. After the Conference session was over, his guilt was so profound that he was irrational and exceedingly troubled. To deal with the problem he was sent to the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic where I had previously worked. Robert Burgoyne, M.D. the Psychiatrist for the clinic, saw him. He was given medications to deal with the symptoms. I had been doing Feeling Therapy with his wife for some months. She was doing nicely, but was deeply concerned about her husband. She said he didnt seem to be getting any better by his treatment, though the symptoms were muted somewhat by his medications. I agreed to see John and help him with his pain using the deep feeling Therapy. As I helped John access his pain, he seemed to do quite well at first; however, after a few sessions he seemed to come to a wall. He couldnt seem to get past the block to deeper feelings I accurately guessed that the medications he was taking was the problem. Since I knew Dr. Burgoyne very well, having worked in the same clinic with him for six years. I called him on the phone and discussed Johns problem briefly. I asked Dr. Burgoyne what would happen if John were to discontinue his medications. His reply was that within two weeks he would decompensate,-that is have a nervous breakdown. I then told him about my treatment with John and the block that he was experiencing. I said I planned to have him slowly cut down his medications while continuing therapy and assured him that if any decompensation was observed I would have the client increase his medications before any damage was done. He asked me to keep in touch with him as necessary.

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I had John cut down his medications while doing the deep feeling sessions. It worked like a charm. The medication reduction allowed access to the painful feelings and the therapy gradually reduced the pain necessitating further reductions of the medications, until he was completely off his psychotropic drugs. His mental-emotional functioning normalized and he did not decompensate. I believed that this was a valuable lesson to learn. It demonstrated to me the potency of Feeling Therapy to eliminate emotional pain and at the same time provide a treatment pattern for getting off psychotropic drugs. Sharing My Experiences With Fellow Practitioners I went on having new exciting experiences with this new therapy. Each day was an adventure. I was gaining knowledge from my clients experiences and also increased surety of the potency of this process. Though, while it seemed easy to share this knowledge with clients, it was not so easily shared with my fellow practitioners. I just knew that if they could only sit in on a session and see the healing as it occurred; they would be as impressed as I was. I once had my supervisor observe the highly emotional session of the potential murder rapist previously shared with you. The supervisor was new, and in our discussion after the session, he seemed to miss much of the significance of the work done. I think that he was too shook up. He asked if the session couldnt have just as well been done with the lights on and sitting in a chair, without the cursing. I thought to myself, He wonders if the therapy couldnt be done just as well, with out doing the therapy. Never the less, he allowed me to continue the work undisturbed. On another occasion, I was scheduled to present to six or eight of the top administrators in Social Services. I selected the experiences of a client, which I had worked with for six plus months, to use in the presentation. As part of the presentation, I showed them the results of some MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) tests that I had the client take. This is one of the most highly used and respected tests in the counseling world. It is designed to assess the areas of psychological dysfunction. In my terms, it is to measure the amount of emotional pain an individual is experiencing and the ways that pain is being experienced by the client (symptoms). By the way, the client was one I had treated with standard therapy for over a year at my previous place of work. My previous experience with the MMPI was that very few of the disorders measured could be affected much by therapy. I showed the men the results of the tests taken before treatment, after three months and just before the presentation. The results were dramatic. The first showing a high state of dysfunction (not withstanding the previous treatment), the second moderate dysfunction and finally normal functioning in all categories. I felt I had just shown them the cure for mental illness. Though I expected the group to be unanimously impressed, they responded more like I should have expected. About half the group was excited about the results and gave encouragement. The other half seemed to miss the significance of what they had

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seen and were more worried about how others would react to the process. Over all they asked me to not make any further presentations without getting the material cleared with them first. But still I was allowed to continue using the treatment method. By now I had become aware that all people carry around a lot of emotional pain with them. Some, the hurts and many losses in their lives and the resulting pain, are very evident to them. It usually becomes evident to others, also, by the obvious sadness and depression they exude and also, by the self destructive tools they employ to quell their paintobacco, alcohol, illicit and even some legal drugs. The vast majority of people, the normal every day folks, certainly do not have as much emotional pain as those aforementioned, but would be surprised at how much they do have. I have marveled at how much pain a person can have and still function reasonably well. For the most part, we just get accustomed to quirks and anxiety as a normal part of life and accept it. Dr. Janov says that pains from losses or hurts that have not been fully felt are repressed; these pains he calls historic pain. Conclusions and decisions arrived at, because of historic pain, can have an enormous influence on ones current life, though the origin of which is long forgotten. Lady from Southern Utah One such example of this idea will be illustrated by the following story: I saw a lady from Southern Utah referred by an associate of mine. I saw her two timesonce to discuss the healing process and on the following day to do a session. In session, at the beginning, when she was relaxing and trying to access, it seemed to be taking quite a while. She was quiet and, I thought, not going anywhere, so I asked her what she was doing. She responded by saying, I am waiting. My first thought was Darn, shes not been able to access yet. But soon I recognized that she was already into her processing. After an emotional and fruitful session, in the discussion phase, she explained that she had always had a problem with waiting. She related many ways in which this problem had been manifest. Her husband was a farmer and she didnt like to take his dinner to him in the fields. Sometimes he had to finish a task before attending to her and she didnt like to wait. Her husband would occasionally make a trip to Salt Lake City for some business and she didnt like to accompany him because she couldnt stand to wait for him to complete his business. As a mother, when she assigned the children a task, she wanted it done nowshe was short on patience. She noted that as a child, when her parents went out for the evening, while her siblings played, she sat under the kitchen table feeling terrible until her parents returned. The beginning of the dislike of waiting started when she was in her mothers womb waiting to be born. Her father was known as a wanderer except when her mother had her babies. She was the last of her mothers children to be born and mother was reluctant to give up her pregnancy and lose the closer companionship

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of her husband; so, she tried to hold on to her unborn baby as long as possible. She did pretty well at that, gaining perhaps an extra day, but in the end, her baby, my client, had to pay for what could have been a lifetime quirk if not for the healing she received in her feeling session. A Personal Experience With Traumatic Pain Though I knew intellectually about pain, I did not know from my own experiences, pain, as my clients knew. That lack in my education was not to be neglected for long. One Friday afternoon, on December third of nineteen seventy-six to be exact. It was my custom to work late on Thursdays and leave work at noon Fridays. I called home before leaving. I reached my daughter Rosemari and she was noticeably upset. She said that my son Ronnie had fallen through the ice and I should come home as quickly as possibleI lost no time in heading for home. On the way home, I wondered where around our neighborhood was there enough water to fall through the iceI only knew of a pond about a foot deep. As I anxiously drove on, a picture kept intruding into my mind; a picture of an emergency entrance and the thought DOA, DOA. I kept pushing the thought aside and drove on. When I finally arrived home and was directed to the pond where the accident happened, my heart sank when I saw before me a large settling pond about 150 feet across and at least ten feet deep. I said aloud, If Ronnie fell in there hes gone. By this time my wife Ruth had arrived and we stood silently and watched the rescue workers as they s l o w l y and deliberately did their work. I believe that they did not have any hope that the boys could be saved, so they proceeded with caution. A number of years later there were a number of similar drownings reported in the newspapers where the victims were safely resuscitated with no or little ill effects. It seems that being drowned in ice cold water reduces the need for oxygen and therefore gives extended time before serious brain damage occurs. You can imagine our thoughts in retrospect. We learned later that four or five boys were playing hockey on the ice. One of the boys went to the center of the pond to retrieve an errant puck While he stooped to pick up the puck the ice gave way and he fell in. My son went to help the boy (his good friend) and he also fell in. I was told that Ronnie almost got out, but the ice kept giving away and he finally went under. A third boy went partially in, trying to help, but was able to get out. A fourth boy went for help. Thus began a most hellish experience. I will not recount all the vivid details of the next months except to share what is important for the purposes of this book. Ruth and I sat with our five remaining children and told them that in order to get through the pain of losing Ronnie we would have to face his loss squarely and not run away from our pain. Our oldest child was a boy nearly nineteen years of age. The other four were girls from seventeen down to the youngest who was only four. I told them that they might not be able to be open about their loss out in the world, but they should be able to mourn at home and with each other. We

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discussed ways to deal with our hurt and decided that if we felt like cryingcry; if we felt like readingread; if we felt like talking about our feelings talk; if we felt like writing about our feelingswrite. We needed to process our hurts by facing and feeling them. In the next months there were many examples of Ruth and me and the girls healthily dealing with our loss. The girls cried both at home and at school, with their friends and talked as well as put their feelings down on paper. On the other hand, my son Bob was obviously trying to blot the experience from his mind. He wouldnt talk about Ronnie and avoided all attempts to discuss his death. He and Ronnie had shared the same bedroom. Bob had been Ronnies coach and mentor. Bob taught Ronnie to love and excel in sports and spent a lot of time practicing with himRonnies loss hit him especially hard. Bob had planned to go on a mission for the LDS Church before his brothers death and the time for the mission was not far offnow he never talked about it. I didnt want to push him. I had not been pushed by my parents to go on my mission and I was grateful. I wanted him to know the joy of deciding for himself. Weeks and months came and went. I noticed that Bob seemed to surround himself with luxury and pleasure. He made himself a double-bed size waterbed. He bought himself a stereo system with oversize speakers. He spared himself no luxury. He bought himself one fancy car after anotherFord Mustang, Z-28, a Chevrolet Cobra and a sporty, red, British Spitfire convertible. I thought he was compensating, but at least his diversions were not detrimental. When he was twenty-one I asked him what happened to his plan to go on a mission. To this he only reminded me that I didnt go on my mission until I was twenty-one and he thought he still had plenty of time yet. More months added on to months and Bob continued to surround himself with luxury. He spent a lot of time with a girl friend that was about fifteen years old. Her parents for business reasons moved out of town. After this, the relationship naturally cooled and he later started going with a girl from his work that was sixteenBob was about twenty-three. I thought that was kind of oddthe difference in ages. After Ronnies death, the husband of a client of mine asked if he could paint a portrait of Ronnie for us. I was pleased with the offer and gave him one of Ronnies last photographs. When the painting was completed it was placed on a wall in our kitchenwe were comforted to have the painting. After time, we all got accustomed to the picture being on the wallit was a part of the dcor. One day I took a photograph of Bob in the kitchen. After the film was developed, I brought the photos home and gave Bob his picture to see. In his photo, he was standing with his back to the wall that had Ronnies portrait on it and when Bob looked at his photo it looked as if Ronnies head was sitting on Bob's shoulder. Bob glanced momentarily, then closed his eyes, took the photo and threw it across the room. The pain had not diminished one bit in four years. Around this time, I decided to talk with Bob again and asked him why he was not going on a mission as he had always planned. To this Bob said that he had decided not to go on a mission because he was afraid he would have a nervous

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breakdown. He said he felt he couldnt stand to be away from home and rather than take a chance he would stay home and not go. At first this was a surprise, until I realized that all the signs pointed to his never having dealt with the pain of losing his brother. All that pain had been retained inside and had been doing a job on his self-esteem and feelings of adequacy. Thats why he dated girls much younger than he was, and surrounded himself with luxury. Thats why he felt fragile and on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Some time later, Ruth and I was awakened in the middle of the night. An awful, piercing sound came from Bobs room, which was under ours. It sounded like a wolfs mournful howl that penetrated the floorboards and exited straight through the ceiling and roof over our heads. Something had finally gotten through to Bob in a big way and he was releasing the pain of the last few years. After that, we started to see changes in Bob that let us know that we had finally gotten our Bob back. He had been working on a degree in Psychology and had met a girl who was a year younger and was near graduating from college in Home Economics. He also said he wanted to go on a mission for the church. As it worked out he was encouraged to marry his girl friend and graduate from college and forego the mission. He went on to have four children and live an exemplary life. Ruth and I have been very pleased with him and his family. As for how things went for me, I worked hard at facing and processing my pain, as did Ruth. We both talked a lot, read a lot, and cried a lot. We attended meetings with others who had lost childrenunder the auspices of Compassionate Friendsand were able to relieve a lot of our hurt. It took about six months for my pain to lift. When it did, it was impressive to feel the difference between the intense, sharp pain of loss and then experience the shift to the internal calmness that took its place. Having felt the intensity of the sharp pain, thereafter, helped me to have a better understanding of how loss could drive a person to drink or drugs for relief and be reluctant to face the pain. But more importantly, I knew how good it feels to have the pain lifted. One thing happened that I didnt expect. That was that I felt so good that I actually felt some guilt over feeling so good. I couldnt help connecting it to Ronnies death. Sometime after, I had an insight that I treasure and that was to help me realize even more the goodness of God. He has things set up so that even in loss and hurtful experiences, growth and some good can come if the experience is processed.

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Chapter 4
The New Therapy: Really the Worlds Oldest
As we continue on our adventure of discovery, I will have you join me on a smaller journey within the journey. This journey is not a departure from the trail to our over all destination, but rather is a very important part of it. It is about how I recognized that the powerful and effective new therapy is really the worlds oldest therapy. I must first share with you an important part of the foundation upon which this realization was based. In addition to my strong interest in a secular education, I also had an even stronger interest in spiritual and religious truth, as you must already know. My religious education came about as a natural result of being an active member of the LDS Church. While attending the University of Utah I attended and graduated from the Institute of Religion. But more importantly, I also fulfilled a nearly three year full-time mission for the church in Brazil. Through this experience as an ordained minister, during the term of the mission, I became acquainted with the Bible and also modern day revelation found in the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. As a result of study and daily acquaintance with these scriptures, I learned many things that I regard as true principles that I have lived and found worthy to base my life on. Since the scope and purpose of this book is not about true principles in general, I will only deal with those that do pertain to this book. I will. However, share a few of the things that helped to build my belief and faith in the truthfulness of the scriptures. Some of the things shared may seem small and not very important at first glance, but upon further scrutiny you will note are very importantas in the following example: This interesting observation was made known through the work of Dr. Hugh Nibley, a professor of ancient languages at the Brigham Young University. He is perhaps the most respected scholar of ancient scriptures of our time and noted for his penetrating and scholarly work. He observed, while comparing some scriptures contained in the King James Version of the Holy Bible and also quoted in the Book of Mormon of the second chapter of Isaiah verse sixteen, that there was a difference in the wording between the two. In the King James Version, Isaiah 2:16 was rendered by the translators as follows: And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures. In the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 12: 16 quoting Isaiah 2:16, that was taken from the Brass Plates was translated thusly:

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And upon all the ships of the sea, and upon the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the pleasant pictures. Dr. Nibley found a translation of the Bible from an ancient time between 600 BC and the translation of the King James Version (about16thcentury AD), perhaps from the days of Jesus, the same sentence that read as follows: And upon the ships of the sea, and upon all pleasant pictures. The earlier book of Isaiah, contained in the Brass Plates and the Book of Mormon, rendered the same translation, as they should have. They both came from the same period of time around 600 BC. But the other two translations both missed a phraseand a different phrase at that. Apparently, those translators thought that both phrases were redundant and left one of the phrases out. Since they each decided to leave out a different phrase and the Book of Mormon translator left them both in, as he should have, they have done us a big favor. This adds credence to the reality of the Book of Mormon being what Joseph Smith said it waswritings from an ancient people and more importantly translated with the help of God. I read many books on archeological evidences of the Book of Mormon after my Mission. There were many things mentioned in the book that, at the time of Joseph Smith, were thought not to have existed in the Americas before Columbus. It was generally thought by the learned of the time that the concept of the wheel was not known by the inhabitants of the Americas. They did not believe that horses existed in the Americas before being introduced by the Spanish. They did not understand the high degree of sophistication that their society attained. The fact that an advanced race of Caucasian, bearded people inhabited the land, as described in the Book of Mormon, was not known or believed. Joseph Smith was derided by many as a result. Over the passage of time, the Book of Mormon and the Prophet are being vindicated by the mountain of evidence that piles up to verify that the things written in the book are accurate and lend credence to the books veracity. Beside the Archeological evidences that abound, there are other evidences inherent in the Book itselfdoctrinal truths that enlarge and clarify our understanding of them; geographical references that are internally consistent; doctrine that is consistent with the Bible; the Book of Mormon is consistent within itselfno contradictions have been found, and has stood up to its many critics over one hundred and seventy-five years and never faltered (see Appendix for list of books that treat this subject in detail). I will now touch briefly on some interesting quotes from the Book of Mormon: Doctrinal Truths There has been a question among many Christian sects concerning the basic nature of the parents of all mankind. Are they basically good, or basically evil?

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They say that our parents sinned and therefore we, their children, are conceived in sin and as such are fundamentally evil. An example of this doctrinal question being beautifully clarified is noted in the following quote from the Book of Mormon found in 2nd Nephi 2: 18-25: 18. And because he had fallen from heaven, and became miserable forever he sought also the misery of all mankind. Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who was the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. 19. And after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the garden of Eden, to till the earth. 20. And they have brought forth children; yea, even the family of all the earth. 21. And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed unto all men that they were lost because of the transgression of their parents. 22. And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things that were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. 23. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery: doing no good for they knew no sin. 24. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. 25. Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy. Another doctrinal question has been of concern to many for many hundreds of years: That is, what is the state of those who died before Christ or who never had the chance to learn the Gospel laws? Are they eternally dammed? Lehis son Jacob has something to say about this in 2nd Nephi 9: 25-29: 25. Wherefore, he has given a law; and where there is no law given there is no punishment; and where the is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him. 26. For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon those who have not the law given to them, that they are delivered from that awful monster, death and hell, and the devil, and the lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment; and they are restored to that God who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel.
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27. But wo unto him that has the law given, yea, that has all the commandments of God, like unto us, and that transgresseth them, and that wasteth the days of his probation, for awful is his state! 28. O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they harken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. 29. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God. A Fascinating Treatise on Faith The following discourse is found in the Book of Mormon in Alma 32: 2643: 26. Now, as I have said concerning faiththat it was not a perfect knowledgeeven so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge. 27. But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if you can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words. 28. Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if we give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out with your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, It will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselvesIt must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. 29. Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, yea, nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge. 30. But behold, as the seed swelleth, and sproutheth, and beginneth to grow, then you must needs say that the seed is good; for behold it swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow. 31. And now, behold, are ye sure that this is a good seed? I say unto you, Yea, for every seed bringeth forth unto its own likeness. 32. Therefore, if a seed groweth it is good, but if it grow not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away. 33. And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good. 34. And now, behold is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant; and this because ye know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that

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it sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand. 35. O then, is not this real? I say unto you, Yea, because it is light; and whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernable, therefore ye must know that it is good; and now behold, after ye have tasted this light is your knowledge perfect? 36. Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither must ye lay aside your faith, for ye have only exercised your faith to plant the seed that ye might try the experiment to know if the seed was good. 37.And behold, as the tree beginneth to grow, ye will say; Let us nourish it with great care, that it may get root, that it may grow up, and bring forth fruit unto us. And now behold, if ye nourish it with much care it will get root, and grow up, and bring forth fruit. 38. But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out. 39. Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit is not desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof. 40. And thus, if ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the tree of life. 41. But if ye will nourish the word, yea nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up to everlasting life 42. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst. 43. Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you. The Book of Mormon is full of history, theology, customs and cultures of an ancient people unknown to Joseph Smith and yet the book was completed in about three months. A task that could have only been done in the manner Joseph Smith and the special witnesses said it was. These are only a few of the reasons I believe in ancient and modern revelation. They are a small part of why I believe as I do. Another thing that helped greatly in the discovery that the new therapy was actually the worlds oldest therapy, was the fact of my being able to work in the special work environment I had with the LDS Social Services. There I could use my secular education (infact it was a requirement of my employment) but also I

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could use my religious education and experience (it was also valued) as well as use the scriptures in my work with clients. The clients, being members of the church, had training and understandings that made them ideal for this kind of a setting. Having worked for secular agencies for over six years, I knew how fortunate I was to be in this particular treatment environment. I was able to use a broader number of tools to a more receptive clientele. I could use such tools as faith, hope, charity, forgiveness, repentance, belief in truths not seen, but never-the-less true, Eternal marriage, sanctity of marriage, fidelity in marriage etc. Because of shared beliefs in religious philosophy and in the scriptures, the clients could be more easily brought to an understanding of healing principles and how they could be brought to bear in the resolution of their problems; we saved communication time and increased conviction. Clients would try harder because of belief in time-tested truths from scriptures. The clients also had good support systems from families as well as ward members and friends. Now having said the foregoing, I must make a confession. I have always thought of myself as a practical manperhaps too practicaland as Thomas of old, I wanted tangible proofs in order to believe. I have lamented not being more spiritually minded as some of my friends seemed to be. When I read the Book of Mormon the first time at the age of twelve and even subsequent readings, I read passages that I glossed over because they seemed to be too dramatic or miraculous. The accounts were almost a negative to me. But because of all the other factors mentioned, and the time spent up to and including my mission, studying the Book of Mormon, I accepted the questioned passages on faith. Over time I gradually became aware that the New therapythat I called Feeling Therapy or Deep Feeling Therapyseemed to be based on similar principles as those involving the principle of repentance. When I finally made that connection there was an element of excitement. I started to examine the healing accounts in the Book of Mormon and other scriptures more closely; and not only scriptures, but also secular accounts of similar miraculous healings. I was now more open to the miraculous because of Feeling Therapy and I studied the principles in repentance and Feeling Therapy for comparison.

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Chapter 5
Repentance and Feeling Therapy Compared
The Search for Meanings When I recognized a relationship existed between repentance and Feeling Therapy, it was obvious I had, on some subconscious, thinking level, already been making comparisons between the two. I now, decided to more aggressively make a conscious, studied comparison. The first step was to start with the names used to identify the two processes, so I went to the dictionary. First, I used feeling or deep feeling to describe the therapeutic process I had been experimenting with because the essence of the process was dealing with feeling on a deep level. The dictionary was mostly used to get an accurate meaning of the word repentance. According to the Websters New World Dictionary,1 repentance is made up of two words, re, meaning again, anew, to do over again, and pent (from the Greek word pentir) which means to feel sorrow, regret, or contrition. Repentance also has the implication of resolve to change accompanied by a complete change of mind and character. I also looked at other related words in the Merriam-Webster dictionary from the 2002 Britannica on computer.2 Penetrate (Greek or Latin word penitus which means deep within) means to pass into or through, to enter by overcoming resistance, to discover the inner contents or meaning of, to affect profoundly with feeling, to affect deeply the senses or feelings. I also looked at Penitence. It has about the same meaning as repentance. Summing it up, repentance is an inward, process inwhich feelings of sorrow, regret are felt to the extent of affecting profound changes in behavior and mind and character. True repentance means the change is for the better and is permanent. Thus far, the two processes share the same name designations; they are described as being deep, feeling and leading to profound, positive and permanent change. Repentance and the Scriptures Repentance is a word that is used a lot in scripture. Most religions in the Western Industrialized Nations are based on principles of right and wrong found in the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible is imbued with special power because the words and principles contained therein are not only considered good ideas, but in fact, the word of God. The scriptures, being the words of God, they are considered true and immutable and time tested by those who believe.

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The purpose of religious organizations and churches is to help Gods children on earth to successfully navigate through life and be able to return to their Father in Heaven. Because of the many pitfalls, hurdles and traps people can fall into and be sidetracked (that is to not live true or righteous principles), churches become places of learning and places of support. Repentance is the major tool used to help people that have gotten off track to get back on track. In most churches they use most of the tools used in standard therapy for the good of their members. They use Concept Therapy, Behavior Modification, giving service and Milieu Therapy. But the most powerful therapy of all is the change that comes from repentance. Let us look into some of the scriptures in order to see what more we can learn about this most important process. In the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 26:27 it says: Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance. Again in Alma chapter five, the whole chapter is a discourse to members of the church in the city of Zarahemla, on repentance. You should really read the whole chapter in order to get the full impact of a beautiful discourse. For now, a few of the words of the discourse will suffice for the purposes of this discussion. Alma the younger said, speaking of his father Alma who he was named after: 12. And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true. 13. And behold, he preached the word unto your fathers, and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts, and they humbled themselves and put their trust in the true and living God. And behold, they were faithful until the end; therefore they were saved. 14. And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? 15. Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body? 26.And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now? 33. Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: repent and I will receive you. 34. Yea, he saith: Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life; yea, ye shall eat and drink of the bread and the waters of life freely;

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62. I speak by way of command unto you that belong to the church; and unto those who do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation, saying: Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life. (Emphasis added) Alma the father of Alma the younger made the following statement that is taken from Mosiah 19: 19-20: 19. And he commanded them that they should teach nothing save it were the things which he had taught, and which had been spoken by the mouth of the holy prophets. 20. Yea, even he commanded them that they should preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord, who had redeemed his people. (Emphasis added) Thus we see that repentance is referred to as the mighty change and it should be preached to all men. Alma further said in Alma 9: 12, that no man could inherit the Kingdom of God without having repented: 12. Behold, now I say unto you that he commandeth you to repent; and except ye repent, ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Apostle Paul said (Ephesians 5:5): 5. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Again, Nephi said he spoke by the authority of the Holy Ghost when he said in 1 Nephi 10.21: Wherefore, if ye have sought to do wickedly in the days of your probation, then ye are found unclean before the judgement-seat of God; and no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever. In the Book of Moses 6:57,the Lord told Adam to teach his children the following: Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the Kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence;(Emphasis added) Apostle Paul taught the saints in Corinth some beautiful truths concerning repentance. In 2 Corinthians 7: 9-11 he said:

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9. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. 10.For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 11.For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be cleared in this matter.(Emphasis added) Paul taught that there are two levels of sorrow. One, a shallow one he called sorrow of the world, that is when one commits a sin and a price is exacted, the person committing the sin is sorry he was caught (that is had to pay the price). And two, when one commits a sin and whether or not the person is caught, that person feels deep regret over having committed the sin and resolves never to commit the sin againand doesnt. In summing up, repentance is an essential process one must go through if one wants to dwell with Our Father in heaven. It is a life changing, powerful process that cleanses and heals man of the moral and spiritual battle scars of mortal life. Feeling Therapy is a process that heals and clears a person of pain and emotional garbage resulting in better functioning and happiness of its recipient. So at this point, the designations or names of the two processes mean the same and the purposes of both results in similar outcomes. Now I propose that we look at some of the examples from scripture to examine the processes that are inherent to repentance, so that they can be compared to Feeling Therapy. Looking at the Mechanics of the Two Processes In deep feeling therapy, first, the feelings are brought to the surface. This can happen in at least three waysby accident, by overload, or by design. If by accident, the feeling can surface as result of weakness(lack of energy), exhaustion (over work), illness or acute distress. If by overload, this can happen by repeated blocking of painful feelings until the person is filled to overflowing. By design, is a result of a person deciding to focus on uncomfortable feelings to achieve resolutionthis of course is the preferred choice. Second, feelings are focused on and allowed expression. Third, the expression of feelings in the beginning is always of negative and hurtful or painful content. Fourth, at the end of processing the painful feelings, always come feelings of relief and tranquility. Fifth, insights and revelations are experienced. And sixth, automatic, positive change in attitudes and behaviors occur and the changes are generally permanent.

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Parenthetically, another interesting thing that usually happens as a result of starting this process, is that there seems to be a move toward healing that continues after a session is over as insights and changes continue to emerge. Examples of Repentance in the Scriptures Now I would like to review some of the examples of repentance, the mighty change, in scripture so that we can then look at the processes inherent in repentance Alma the Younger One of the best accounts (took place about 73 B.C.) of the healing process, which is referred to as being reborn through repentance, is that of Alma, the Younger, as he was traveling with the sons of Mosiah. They were on their way to destroy the Church of God, which they thought were placing unnecessary burdens on the people. The full account is found in the Book of Mosiah chapter 27, as abridged by Mormon from records kept by Alma the elder and in Alma chapter 36 which is Alma the Youngers personal account of what happened to him, as abridged by Mormon. To get the full flavor of what took place it would be better to read the full account. In essence, Alma had been praying for his sons reformation and in response to his prayers an angel was sent to Alma the younger to bring about his reformation. The first thing the angel did was to startle Alma and the sons of Mosiah. He did so by suddenly appearing and speaking with a loud voice, so loud that it caused the earth to shake. Mormon said, and so great was their astonishment, that they fell to the earth, . . . . (Mosiah 27:12) and the astonishment of Alma was so great that he became dumb, that he could not open his mouth; yea and he became weak, even that he could not move his hands; . . . His companions soon recovered sufficiently that they carried him, in his outwardly unresponsive state, and laid him before his father Alma, the head of the church and told him what had happened. Alma was overjoyed and grateful for this answer to his prayer and called the priests to assemble and fast and pray for his son. He seemed to understand the process that his son was going through. I wonder what would have happened in our days if something like this happened to one of us. I suspect at least a call to the paramedics would take place. In all, Alma the younger remained in that state for three days and nights before he came out of it rejoicing that he had been born again of God. He later gave an account of what took place during that three days and nights. He said he wandered through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, (Mosiah 27:28) and after the tribulation he was snatched out of an everlasting burning and I am born of God. He said that all mankind must also be born of God. He said My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was wracked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more. (Mosiah 27: 29)

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In his own personal account Alma said he was racked with eternal torment and remembered all his sins and iniquities and that this was a great torment to him. He could recognize that he had rebelled against his God and he had not kept His commandments (Alma 36:13). He couldnt stand the thought of standing before God as he was and wished to become extinct. At the moment of greatest pain, he remembered the teachings of his father about Jesus Christ and when he thought about this he cried out to Him for help, the pain was suddenly gone and in its place was joy and he saw a marvelous light. At that instant his pain left him he remembered the pain no more. He went on to say and oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! He further said Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy. (Alma 36:20-21) In my work I find that when one shuts down feelings to avoid pain that person also limits his ability to feel joy. By the same token, as a person starts to become more feeling he also increases his ability to experience joy. Almas experience pointed out a relationship between the intense pain he experienced and the exquisite and sweet joy that came to him. In psychological terms we know that painful and unpleasant experiences are often repressed or suppressed in an attempt to avoid pain. This usually gives some respite from the full experience of a painful feeling episode, but it leaves a residue, that joined with other repressed feelings becomes the primary culprit behind emotional problems and difficulties in handling or reacting healthily in stress situations. A concomitant to repression is a lessened ability to really feel fullypain or pleasure. There is also a lessened consciousness. In other words, a person thus shut down is not able to meet stress situation optimally because he doesnt have his full faculties operatingfull consciousness and full feeling. The repression is released by facing and feeling the earlier unfelt feelings, which once felt, lift and the full range of feeling is restored. Thus, a person with a great load of unfelt or repressed feelings is simply not able to feel a fullness of joy and will be unable to do so until the repression is released by fully feeling the repressed emotions. Some other interesting details were given. He said that the angel spoke some things that were heard by the men with him, that he did not hear because he was so involved with the eternal torment he was going through (Alma 36: 11). In my work with the healing process, I have noted that a person gets so involved with what they are going through that they filter out what ever is not essential to their healing. After Almas experience he felt renewed and cleansed and declared that he had been born of God. He desired to have all men taste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste and dedicated himself to that end for the rest of his days. He further said, many have been born of God, and have tasted as I have tasted, and have seen eye to eye as I have seen; therefore they do know of these things of which I have spoken, as I do know; and the knowledge which I have is of God. He never returned to his former ways. He was a new creature.(Alma 36: 24,26)

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Through his efforts many were converted as he was converted thereby showing that his experience though marvelous was not unique in his culture.

Apostle Paul The experience of Alma around 73 B.C. is very similar to that of Apostle Paul, about a hundred years later in Palestine. Paul was active in the persecution of Christians (Acts 8:3; 26:10; Gal. 1:13) and took part in the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts.7: 58-60; 8:1). He was on the road to Damascus for the further persecution of the Christians (Acts 9:1-2). Paul was trying to stop the Christian church and was confronted by the resurrected Christ while on his journey. He was startled and fell to the earth. The experience had such a powerful impact on him that he was rendered blind for three days and he could not eat (Acts 9:9). Saul (as he was called at that time) received communication in vision that led him to Ananias, who had earlier been prepared for him in a vision. Ananias then restored Sauls sight with a blessing and the laying on of hands, and immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith and arose and was baptized (Acts 9:18). Paul gave added detail in his defense before King Agrippa (Acts.26) From that time forward he was a converted and dedicated follower of Christ who worked ceaselessly to bring others to experience a newness of life as he had experienced. The Conversion of King Lamoni The conversion of the Lamanite King Lamoni and subsequently his father, King of all the Lamanites, were rather dramatic examples of the conversion process that paralleled, in several particulars, Pauls conversion as well as that of Almas and others which we have and will review. King Lamonis conversion is found in the Book of Mormon, in chapters 18 and 19 of the Book of Alma. The King was made receptive and open to conversion by his experiences with Ammon, who had journeyed to Lamanite country with his brothers (sons of Mosiah). Ammon protected the Kings flocks with what appeared to be super-human courage and strength. When the King was told of the feat he was astonished exceedingly (Alma 18:2). He then started thinking of some of the evil things he had done previously and began to fear exceedingly with fear lest he had done wrong in slaying his servants; for he had slain many of them because their brethren had scattered their flocks at their place of water; and thus, because they had had their flocks scattered they were slain. (Alma 18: 5-6) Next, he was further impressed by Ammons extraordinary faithfulness in attending to his duties (Verse 10) which made the King more receptive. Then Ammon perceived the thoughts of the King (Verse 16) and the King was even more impressed (Verse 18). With the King in an exceptional state of openness and receptivity, Ammon told him of Gods plan from the beginning of man to their day. The

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account simply said, the King believed all his words (Verse 40). And the accounts continued: And he began to cry unto the Lord, saying, O Lord, have mercy; according to thy abundant mercy which thou hast had upon the people of Nephi, have upon me, and my people. And now, when he had said this, he fell upon the earth, as if he were dead. (Alma 18:40-43.) He was then carried to his wife and laid upon a bed where he lay as if he were dead for the space of two days and two nights. Ammon understood what had happened to the King and what he was going through. He explained: .he knew that King Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was the light of his goodnessyea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God (Alma 19: 6). When the King came out of this state, as predicted by Ammon, he reached out to his wife and said Blessed be the name of God, and blessed art thou. He bore testimony that he had seen Christ and prophesied. Then he sank down again with joy. Then follows an example of what we might call the contagion effect. This happens when other people nearby are similarly effected, as in the following case: the Queen also sunk down, being overpowered by the spirit (Alma 19:13) then Ammon once again was overpowered with joy and sunk to the earth, and following that, the servants of the King did call on the name of the Lord, in their might, even until they had all fallen to the earth, . . . The contagion effect seems to occur when vibrations are sent out from one person and touches another person; such that a sympathetic response results. The vibrations sent out could be either positive or negative depending on whether they come from the spirit or real self or from the natural or carnal man. The tendency is for the response to be sympathetic or similar to the vibrations sent out. Mob behavior is of this kind of phenomenon. Marital fights are of the same nature. If ones negative self is addressed, there is usually a negative response and vice versa. Testimony baring is sharing a heart felt truth from ones inner self to that of another and both feeling the oneness or sympathetic vibrations established between them. This example of the contagion effect was that of positive vibrations started by King Lamoni reaching his inner self and touching the sympathetic responses in those around him. Another example of the contagion effect is found in Mosiah chapter 3 and 4,where multitudes fell on the ground in response to King Benjamins parting discourse to his people. This will be discussed in detail later

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All of the people thus involved in this unusual phenomenon seemed to go through similar phases. King Lamonis wife was a good example of this. When Abish, the Lamanitish woman, who had been converted to the gospel, took her hand and she came out of the swoon, she praised Christ and told of the awful hell she had been saved from. The others, as they recovered from their swoons, told of seeing angels and conversing with them and having no more disposition to do evil. First, there was the touching of feelings deep inside. The feelings were strong and dark, described as being an awful hell at first, then turning to overwhelming joy. They described having seen visions of Christ and past and future events and their hearts had been changed, desiring no more to do evil. Conversion of the King of all the Lamanites The conversion of Lamonis father, the king over all the Lamanites, is an inspiring example that follows the general feeling pattern heretofore described. The full text of that experience is found in Alma chapter 20 and 22. Essentially the king was angry and defensive at first, but when Ammon was attacked by the King and Ammon gained the advantage and had the king at his mercy, the king was humbled and begged for mercy (Alma 20:21). The king was touched by Ammons not wanting to do him harm and by his love for Lamoni (Alma 20:26) and was therefore open to learning (Alma 20:27). The king, thus prepared to be taught, was open to Aarons teachings when later he came into the kings kingdom. Aaron taught about the Fall, the Atonement and how man can be redeemed from the Fall through faith and repentance. The king did bow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the earth, and cried mightily, . . . He said, speaking to the Lord . . . I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. At this point, when he had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead (Alma 22:17-19,22,23). 19. And it came to pass that his servants ran and told the queen all that had happened unto their king, and she came in unto the king; and when she saw him lay as if he were dead, and also Aaron and his brethren standing as though they had been the cause of his fall, she was angry with them, and commanded her servants, or the servants of the king, should take them and slay them. 22. Now when Aaron saw the determination of the queen, he also knowing the hardness of the hearts of the people, feared lest that multitude should assemble themselves together, and there should be great contention and a disturbance among them; therefore he put forth his hand and raised the king from the earth, and said unto him: Stand. And he stood upon his feet, receiving his strength. 23. Now this was done in the presence of the queen and many of the servants. And when they saw it they greatly marveled, and began to fear.

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And the king stood forth, and he did minister unto them, insomuch that his whole household were converted unto the Lord. 6. And as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as were brought to the knowledge of the truth, through the preaching of Ammon and his brethren, according to the spirit of revelation and of prophesy, and the power of God working miracles in themyea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away. 7. For they became a righteous people: (Alma 23: 6-7) Once again this example of repentance follows the same pattern seen in the other examples. First, being prepared to be receptive. Second, being in a state that is so powerful that the person appears to be dead to those that do not understand. Even at that, they can easily be brought to their feet because they have never lost consciousness. However, take note that because the process is so powerful that it takes time to regain their strength. It may be noted that both Ammon and Aaron understood what was happening to the kings in their separate experiences. To them, though the happenings were marvelous, they were not unusual or unexpected. Both of the kings were changed forever and were willing to give up their sins and power to experience the joy of the Lord. In addition to the Kings conversions, their wives and large numbers of their peopleespecially the ones that were closer to the experience and the ones who believed in the testimonies of the otherswere also converted. It is assumed that all of the people converted did not go through the same degree of emotional healing or conversion, as did the kings. But all that converted were moved in some emotional way to be willing to change the attitudes born of a lifetime of tradition and training. This example did not give details about any pain experienced, or the joy experienced, but expressed that those involved were converted and became a righteous people and never did fall away. Enos It seems obvious that one of the reasons that the book of Enos was included in the collection that became the Book of Mormon was because of the outstanding experience Enos had when he received a remission of his sins. And again, Mormon included Enos experience in the Book of Mormon for the edification and education of us in our timethe examples of healing and of repentance were carefully and purposefully selected. Enos called his experience the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins. The experience started by isolating himself by going to hunt beasts in the forest. He thought about things his father had taught him concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, and was moved deeply. He said, And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for my own soul He said he

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cried all day long until night time and he did still raise [his] voice high that it reached the heavens. It was then he heard a voice saying his sins were forgiven him and he would be blessed. Then his guilt was swepted away. He was so amazed at how he felt that he asked the Lord how it was done. The Lord told him it was because of his faith (knowledge and works). Immediately after the great relief he experienced, his thoughts turned to the eternal welfare of his Nephite brethren and then he prayed to the Lord with many long strugglings for [his] brethren the Lamanites. The answers Enos sought were then revealed to him and his wishes grantedthen he rested. After that Enos prophesied and testified of the things he heard and saw and he remained faithful to the end of his life.

The Sermon of King Benjamin Another of the choice examples of the divine healing process was included in the Book of Mormon by Mormon and is found in Mosiah chapters 3,4 and 5. It is also the best example of the contagion effect found in the scriptures. Essentially King Benjamin had gotten old and desired to talk to his people one last time. Because of the importance of what he had to say, he called his people from all over the Nephite lands to hear him speak. He wanted to give an accounting of his reign and to turn the leadership of his people over to his oldest son Mosiah, due to his age and lack of strength to carry on. Because of the large number of people expected, he had a tower built, so that he could be heard. He had the people pitch their tents around the temple and tower with the fronts of the tents open so they could stay in the tents and still hear him. He told them about the coming Christ and the plan of salvation whereby men could be saved from the effects of sin and transgression through faith in Jesus Christ and repentance. He told them in graphic detail what would happen to them if they did not repent. The following tells how the people responded to his message: And now, it came to pass that when King Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words which had been delivered into him by the angel of the Lord, that he cast his eyes round about on the multitude, and behold they had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them. 2. And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. 3. And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them and they were filled with joy, having received a

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remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Christ . . . (Mosiah 4: 1-3) King Benjamin then explained again the need to humble themselves to the depths of humility and repent of all sins. He explained the results of following such a course. They would always be happy and filled with the love of God and have their sins removed. They would have no desire to injure one another, but to live peaceably and would not mistreat their children and they would give to the poor (Mosiah 4: 12-16). After his discourse, King Benjamin wanted to know if the people believed in what he had told them, so he inquired of them. The following is their response: And they all cried with one voice, sayings: yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. And we, ourselves, also through the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his spirit, have great views of that which is to come; and were it expedient, we could prophesy of all things. (Emphasis added) (Mosiah 5: 2-3) Summary We should first look at some of the differences noted between repentance and the deep feeling process. First, from the examples of repentance quoted from the scriptures, they seem to be one-time events and second, many of those events took two or three days to complete. From my experience with Feeling Therapy, most sessions are completed within a two-hour time frame. My longest session took five hours. That would usually happen if the client found it very hard to completely surrender to the feelings. Also, while each session usually results in some profound change, it generally takes many sessions to get to where the client is fully satisfied with where they are. Now let us review the similarities between the two. First, they are both powerful, feeling processes. Second, access to the clients feelings is gained by reducing their defenses in similar waysstartle, relaxation, focus, overload, fasting, etc. Third, the first feelings encountered are negative and painful. Fourth, when the feelings are fully felt (experienced) the pain is released and in their place are feelings of relief, joy, increased understanding, and with a greater sense of well being. Fifth, the changes that come from both processes are generally permanent. Sixth, concepts of right and wrong take on greater meaning. The client is more likely to behave according to universally recognized values of right and wrong. The scriptures call repentance a process of cleansing and purification. My clients describe their experience as one of cleaning the garbage out of their systemsthey can literally feel themselves getting rid of emotional filth.

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From the foregoing, we can conclude that repentance and Feeling Therapy are closely related and follow a similar healing pattern. And that if they are not identical twins they are at least fraternal twins.

Notes
1. Guralnik, David B. (Ed.). New World Dictionary, 2nd College Ed., New York, NY, Simon and Schuster, 1984, p. 1204. 2. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, Encyclopedia Britannica 2002. Standard Edition CD.

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Chapter 6
Contributions of Latter-Day Revelation
Understanding the Self in the Light of Latter-day Revelation Some of the most exciting knowledge that has been restored to mankind, in my opinion, is the knowledge of mans divine origin. The knowledge that we are all literal sons and daughters of God created in His image and likeness. (Acts 17: 29) We have a Mother in heaven and we are endowed with the capacity within us to become as They are.1 Jesus Christ is our eldest brother, having been the first born in the spirit and the only begotten in the flesh. (John 1:14) In the Pearl of Great Price we learn that every person that ever lived on earth or shall ever live on earth co-existed with God. We were loved, taught and nurtured as spirit children by the most loving and intelligent parents. We differ from them in that we were only spirit beings, while They are personages with glorified bodies of flesh and bones. We also differed in intelligence. In Abraham 3: 19 of the Pearl of Great Price Abraham said: And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all. In the Doctrine and Covenants section 130: 18-19 we are told; Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another he will have so much the advantage in the world to come. We also learn that man can not be saved in ignorance. (D&C 131: 6) In that spirit stage, we had our agencythe right to make choicesas we do now in mortality. That is one of Gods most precious values. Because we had our agency we differed one from another in our personal development and the degree of our righteous use of agency. We dont know how long we lived in that pre-mortal state, perhaps eons, but we know it was sufficient time to learn and experience all that was necessary in that stage of existence. The time came, when, for our continued progression, it became necessary to have the experience of a mortal existence. We needed to receive physical bodies and learn how to maintain and manage them in order for us to become more like our parents. We also needed to be tested to see if we could be as faithful to our parents away from them as we were in their presence.

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God knew that mortal life would be a difficult challenge and that all would make some mistakes, even serious ones, which could prevent us from being able to return to live with Him in celestial glory. So, part of His plan provided for a way to overcome the effects of wrong doing and sin, so that we could become cleansed and purified and thus fit to live with Him in Eternity. For this to take place, a person with exceptional abilities and exceptional spiritual strength would be needed. This would require someone who could become mortal and remain sinless to overcome the effects of sin, which was death (Rom. 6: 23). The Grand Council in Heaven As a necessary part of this program, God, our Father held a grand council and presented His plan for our ratification and acceptance. His plan was wonderful, but involved some risk. Not all that came to earth would continue to make righteous choices. And there would be blocked memory of our pre-mortal life with our heavenly Parents. This prospect frightened many. One of Gods sons, Lucifer, the son of the morning, one of our elder brothers put forth his own plan. He proposed to make sure that every son and daughter of God would be brought safely back to God. His motivation, however, was suspect because he thought that because he would accomplish such a wonderful thing he should get not only the credit for it, but also the Glory that was Gods. His plan also had a serious flaw and that was, in order to accomplish it, man would have to be denied agency. It would be turned over to Lucifer. Jesus Christ, our eldest brother, was also present at that council. He humbly accepted our Fathers plan, and did not seek Gods glory. Jesus was accepted to fulfill the role of savior to His brothers and sisters. With Jesus acceptance, Lucifers plan was rejected. Lucifer became angry and did not accept the Fathers will and rebelled. Many, a third of Gods children, seeking the surety promised in Lucifers plan followed after him and joined in the rebellion. (Rev. 12: 7-9, 17) We are told little about their fate, except that they had to forego, by their choice, the privilege of coming to earth to obtain a body. Because of their choices in heaven they failed to successfully fulfill the conditions of the first estate which was to live truth in the spirit. Their progression has been limited to the spirit level of existence and they will not have the blessing of eternal increase.2 The rebellion or war that started in heaven is still continuing on earth today. Lucifer or Satan and his followers are still trying to thwart Gods plan of happiness. In the meantime, the rest of Gods children are faced in mortality with the earned privilege and task of proving ourselves by living truth in the fleshthus, successfully fulfilling our second estate. The reward for that is to be able to return to live with our heavenly parents in the Celestial Kingdom and to have eternal increase forever and ever. (Abraham 3: 25-26) Additional knowledge Useful in Understanding Mans True Nature

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It is interesting to know that before we were born as spirit children to our heavenly parents we existed as intelligence. Intelligence is defined variously as the light of truth or light and truth, and was not created or made, neither indeed can be. (D&C 93: 29) It is eternal. Intelligence, or light and truth, is also used as a synonym for spirit element.3 Then God took intelligence or spirit element and organized it into intelligences or spirit bodies and thus became the Father of all spirits. According to Bruce R. McConkie intelligences and spirits are the same. He said, The use of this name [intelligences] designates both the primal element from which the spirit offspring were created and also their inherited capacity to grow in grace, knowledge, power, and intelligence itself, until such intelligences become like their Father.4 Thus, our spirits are eternal and composed of matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes (D&C 131: 7); and it is also composed of the stuff intelligence is made oftruth and light. In the book of Abraham we read the following: 3:21I therefore have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen. 22. Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these were many of the noble and great ones; 23. And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. God, our Father, is full of truth and light, with out peer, and there is no darkness in Himbecause He is completely without sin. Our older brother Jesus is also full of truth and light and there is no darkness in Himalso, because He is without sin. Thus, we see that in addition to being loved and raised by perfect parents we are further blessed by being made of the finest materials possiblea part of which is truth and light. From the foregoing, we can conclude that all people who have ever come to earth, or will ever come, were successful in living truth in the spirit or keeping their first estate. They were pre-qualified and as such were the best of Gods children. Therefore we can make certain generalizations about all people living on the earth today. One, they are in their core nature followers of Christ and as such are lovers of truth. Two, they all had the courage to make the more difficult choice or take the harder course because it was the right thing to do. And they all love God and desire to return to his presence and to become as He isa loving God and creator.
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With the receipt of a body of flesh and bones we lost the direct memory of our spiritual life beforea veil of forgetfulness was drawn. The mechanics of this process was effected by the simple fact that the new flesh had had no prior experience and no memory imprint from our earlier life. The fact of this loss of memory made it possible to effect the test, previously mentioned, to see if we would be as faithful to God away from His presence as in it. It is interesting to note that the term veil was used in describing the separation between the mortal world and the world of spiritsa separation of memory and sight. Veil implies that the separation was not a complete shut off from God as it would be if the barrier was made of steel or stone, but the barrier was more as a veil of loosely woven cloth; so that if one were to remain at a distance from the veil nothing could be seen on the other side; but with nose close to the veil, the other side could be faintly observed. There are ample testimonies in the scriptures and among people throughout the world in all ages, of people who have been able to see through the veil and even part the veil. The most notable was that of Jesus Christ himself. James E. Talmadge, in his book Jesus the Christ, noted Christs increasing awareness and memory of his former life in the Spirit world and of the role that he had been given as Savior of the world.5 I will touch upon this later in the book (Luke 10:18) The Second Estate The Second Estate, which is to live truth in the flesh, is the challenge of mortality. It will prove to be much more difficult to accomplish than was the First Estate. Because of the veil being drawn, it will be necessary to live by faith more than ever before. However, we will not be without resources. Jesus was given the task to redeem mankind and make it possible for them to return to the Father. In fact it could not be done without Him. He was to be a light and example for us, the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (John 1: 9) The light of Christ is in every man. The main difference between the light in mortal man and Christ is that His light is undimmed by sin and he has achieved greater intelligence. Mans light has come to be known as ones conscience or the inner sense that tells us the difference between right and wrong. The inner sense that if listened to will guided us unerringly to truth and away from error. That will prove to be very important because our experience has been that it is virtually impossible to live on earth in the flesh and not sin or have the effects of sin visited upon us. (1 Kings 8: 46; Eccl. 7: 20; Rom. 3: 23; D&C 109: 34) Only Jesus was able to do that and though, born of a mortal mother, he had an added advantage in that the father of his flesh was God Himself. Another resource provided us is Gods Word, in the form of revelations, as revealed to Prophets and Apostles that He has authorized to guide us. Also, He has established organizations throughout the dispensations of time for our learning and support. And because of all the things man might do, knowingly or unknowingly to undermine God, He has provided for a way to maintain the integrity of His doctrine by having Priesthood with authority to act in His name.

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The purpose of the priesthood is at least two fold; one, to insure that any thing done in Gods name has His backing; and two, to maintain the purity of his doctrine, so as to benefit man and not inadvertently do him harm by promoting false principles or doctrine. One of the most important resources our Father gave us was the ability to communicate with him through prayer. At first, it might seem as though this was a poor gift indeed because it only seems to be one wayfrom us to Him. As one becomes more familiar with the process, the genius of our Father becomes more evident. As for the communication from us to Him, He does not need to know from us what we are doingHe already knows what we are doing. It, then, must be ordered that way for our benefit. We need to express in words the needs of our hearts and our gratitude for blessings. The clear expression of our needs can pave the way for the solution of our own problems. This allows us to grow and maintain integrity. God can still do for us what we cant do for ourselves. His direct communications comes to us through revelations to His authorized prophets for His Church, and to us, for our personal needs, through the Holy Ghost. This maintains the integrity of His plan to maintain appropriate distance between us to make the test of mortality validand yet give us the support and help needed to succeed. If that was not enough, we have been organized into families to receive the personal love and care we need to survive until the time when our turn comes to care for the next generation. Thus, each succeeding generation is to provide for the needs of the next generation. This is cost effective, but means that for the most part, in mortality we are all raised by amateurs. We can have, though, some solace in the knowledge that our spirits, the most fundamental part of us, was reared by professionals. Mortality: Basic Training for Godhood Until we get a little experience under our belts and we attain the age of accountability, at about the age of eight, we get a bye on responsibility. That is until we understand what we are doing, we will not be blamed for our actions. After that, the clock on our mortal test begins. From that point on, we will be held accountable to God for the manner in which we deal with earth life and the actions, thoughts, decisions we make in mortality.6 Now, as has been already stated, it would be impossible to go through life without breaking some natural law or committing some sinwhether large or small. And the scriptures tell us that no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of God. (1Nephi 10; 21; 15:34) We know that every person that has ever been on earth, or ever will be on earth, is in his basic core nature, good, lovable and capable at the time of arrival. And that any departures from that condition are essentially a result of earthly experience. That is, anything that is done to us, or we do to ourselves that is contrary to our basic spirit natures has the effect of stultifying or obscuring our Christ like or God like natures. Satan, in his attempts to destroy Gods plan of happiness, seeks to bring us down by encouraging us to disobey Gods

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fundamental laws of truth and by the false traditions of our fathers. (D&C 93:39) Thus, what we see of men that seems to depart from the basic divinity that is in us, is the result of our sins and transgressions and by believing false beliefs taught by our fathers. More will be said about this later. We might note at this point that truth and light are unifying factors. Any truth that is in us, or that we attain in life brings us closer to oneness with Christ and God the Father. And by the same token, sin or transgression, not repented of, obscures the light in us and takes us further away from Christ and God. Christs main mission, to free all men from the effects of sin and provide a way whereby we could return to our Father and live eternal lives, has already been completed. His own sinlessness, the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection and the atonement accomplished that task. In order to live eternally with Jesus and the Father, requires our own adherence to the conditions of the plan. It is through gaining knowledge and living truth that we humans may be able to understand the divine healing process and make it effective in our livesand bring us safely home. Understanding the Healing Process Better During many years of doing therapy, using the feeling principles discussed in this book, I have used a graphic that proved to be very useful in helping clients to better understand how these principles work in relation to themselves. I learned of this graphic in several seminars given by Dr. Sterling Ellsworth on understanding the self. The graphic can be characterized as being three concentric circles that represents mortal man (it can also be drawn in the form of a man). The outer circle he called the front or cover. He said that that was the part of man that man puts forth to represent how he would like to be viewed by others. Generally, people want to be seen in a positive light: In a way that more nearly matches their real self. However, some may present an image that is repugnant to the society in general because of the survival value it has in their more intimate environment. For example, many inmates in a prison setting cultivate a fearsome front so that other inmates will not try to take advantage of them. Also, many people down on their luck purposely try to look like hobos in order to fit into their society for whatever survival value that might have there. He said the depth of that circle was generally thin and quite easily penetrated. An example of this is easily found in marathon group sessions. It takes energy and therefore a lot of effort to keep the front up, so in an eight-hour marathon session the front will usually come down in about two hours. By this time, things can get heated when the negative stuff on the next layer is exposed. It is also one of the reasons that standard therapy is held in such low regard by many with sociopathic

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personalitiesthey can easily keep up their front for an hour and feel they can outwit their therapist. The next circle is the outer edge of a persons negative self. The depth of that circle is different for everyone depending on the experiences, nurturing, and methods of processing life experiences. The people, who are well loved and nurtured, taught truth abundantly and taught how to healthily process lifes experiences will have less depth. Others who have not been so well loved and nurtured, who have not been taught true principles abundantly or shown how to healthily process life experiences, will have more depth in that layer. That circle is to represent the accumulation of stuff that is toxic to the spirit and will therefore not be accepted by the spirit. The stuff that makes up that layer is the hurt and pain from unfelt feelings, the sins and transgressions not repented of and false beliefs of the person being represented by the graph. That circle is variously called the negative self, the unreal self, and by some the garbage pile. That circle contains anything that is not compatible with truth and goodness. That part of the self is not as easily penetrated as the front or cover because it is made up of painful memories or experiences that have not been fully faced or processedit is poison to the soul. Also the deeper one plumbs the depths of that region the more painful the process gets. This layer is characterized as being dark; that is why that region of the self should be explored with care and support. That is the bad news. The good news (gospel) is that it should be done, can be done and is well worth the effort. The rewards are wonderful and eternal. The Lord is your guide and helper. Ideally if a person was loved perfectly, lived an ideal life, and committed no sins or transgressions, there would only be one circleno negative band. However, all men have made some mistakes or were not loved perfectly, thus have need of clearing out or purging the negative band in themselves. The next circle is the outer edge of the real part of the individual. It is called therealself, the spirit. It is the real substance of every manthe core. It is called real because it is the foundation, the bedrock of every person, the part that will never dieit is eternal. The spirit of man is described as being intelligent and lovable and capable and is characterized as being translucent whitebecause of the truth and light inherent in mans basic nature. More good news, the negative or unreal self, though persistent and enduring, is not permanent and it can be eliminated. Our Father has made special arrangements for this to be done. It does not have to be a permanent part of the self because it is not made up of eternal materialsit depends on the choices of the individual. Usually the outer part of the self is compatible with the real self. The thinner the negative self the more the real self comes through and shines. The larger and deeper the negative self, the more it seems to dominate the personality, behavior and character of the individual. In many people, their negative self can become so dominant that they lose awareness of their beautiful real self. A person might believe their front is false and mistake their negative self for their real self. There are many people that sincerely believe that if others really got to know them they wouldnt like them. For example, I had a friend who was a fellow student in the

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School of Social Work. He was an impressive fellow. He was of large stature and was out going. He told me that when he was young his mother died of cancer. His father was a pharmacist and in his fathers grief at the loss of his wife he eventually became addicted to the drugs he had access to. This eventually led to my friend being placed in foster care. His reaction to the loss of his mother and father was so hard for foster parents to deal with that he was placed in as many as forty foster homes (he may have exaggerated, but it must have been a lot). He described himself as becoming a juvenile delinquentwhich undoubtedly accounted for the many families he had been placed with. Eventually he was placed with a family that was up to dealing with him. They taught him healthier ways of coping and feeling good. They were farm people and got him involved in 4H Club projects where he helped raise prize animals. He was able to win prizes for his work and lots of praise. By the time I met him, he had performed heroically in the Korean War, had been a much sought after speaker at high school graduations, and even had the story of his life printed in a large Christian magazine. I became acquainted with him as a fellow student working for our Master of Social Work degrees. He had mastered the art of feeling good by achieving positive goalsby doing things to help people rather than hurt them. We were neighbors while attending school, and attended church together. In one class we attended together for gospel study, I was the class leader or teacher and he was a class member. Over a number of class periods he had a tendency to poke subtle digs at me which I just let go by. My wife, who was also a class member, did not dismiss the digs so easilyshe was not entertained. She would express how she felt later in privacy. Another thing I noticed, was that even though he seemed to make a good first impression, as one got better acquainted with him, little quirks became more obvious, and were quite annoying. One such quirk was that he seemed to make an effort to impress people. If he did something nice, he wanted to make certain he got credit for it. Though he was a good and impressive human being in and of himself, people seemed to back off from him when they saw that side of him. I noticed that he seemed to be developing a life long strategy based on his own observations that he was impressive to people until they got to know him. When people got to know him they backed off. So he would keep on the move every year or so or until people found him out. In later years, when I came to understand this dynamic, I felt sad and hoped he would eventually stay some place long enough for people, and especially himself, to penetrate the negative band and get acquainted with his real self. Then he and others could realize that the impressive front was really a good representation of his real self. I hoped that he could bask enough in his innate goodness that he could truly relax and find ways to unload and release the pain of his early childhood experiences. Other stuff that comprises the makeup of the negative or unreal self is false beliefs. For instance, if a child is told in various ways that she is not lovable or capable she will eventually come to believe it. I have seen the process in many sessions, of a person revisiting a childhood experience where they gave up a truth

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for a parent induced falsehood rather than be on the other side of an issue with their parent. They needed the parents love that badly. Since that belief is not true it will reside in the negative band and will influence the childs perception of him or herself and thus it will negatively affect the childs behavior. To give you an example of this principle I will share with you the story of Ned. Ned was one of my clients, referred by his Bishop. He told me that in general he was doing quite well; however, he had a concern that he had had for quite awhile. He told me that for the most part he was a good businessman, especially at the start of new business ventures. He noticed, however, that as he began to become successful he would do something that would insure his eventual failure. This had happened so much that he wondered if it was more than just bad luck or poor business sense. He decided that he needed to probe deeper than normal conversation could take him to find the answer, so we arranged for him to do some deep feeling therapy. During a session he went to his earlier childhood to a time after he got a new stepmother. His father had gathered him and his siblings together privately to encourage them to be very kind to their new mom. He told them how lucky they were to have a mom again and they needed to love her and not give her a bad time. They needed to help her by doing what she asked them to do. Time passed and in the normal course of living, Neds new mom became upset with the children and accused them of not loving her because they didnt mind her. She also accused their father, to them, of talking bad about her behind her back. Ned protested and said No mom! That isnt true. She cried and said the kids didnt care about her. Again Ned protested and said I love you mom and dad loves you. She again insisted that nobody loved her and the kids wouldnt mind her. This conflict went on. Finally, Ned couldnt take being on the other side of the conflict with his new mom, so he finally decided to be on her side and silently agreed to accept that what she said was true. He said to himself, If I have to be wrong to be accepted I guess I can. That thought eventually became changed and generalized from right and wrong to include success and failure. If I have to be a failure to be loved, I guess I can. During the session that statement eventually became shortened to, success meant to not be loved and failure was to be loved. Of course it didnt take long for the memory of that decision to be forgotten. The insight gained from reliving that part of his early life was truly eye opening to him. He could now understand how that thought silently undermined his efforts to succeed at business. He said to me with wonder in his voice, Success meant I lost, and to lose meant I won! Several years later I met Ned at a party held by a mutual friend. He said that after the feeling session he had he has not had further problems of that type. He said he was doing well in his business ventures. Other stuff that comprises the negative self are false traditions or teachings of the parents no matter what form they come in. For example, in the story just

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related, that teaching to Ned was, without doubt, a result not intended by his new mother. Nevertheless, it had its effect in Neds life. Other things are purposely taught children in the mistaken belief that they are true. If they are not true, there will still be a price to pay. By the same token, there are some true things that should be taught, that if not taught would give the child a handicap in life.7 Also comprising the negative band are painful feelings caused by traumatic events that have not been fully processed (felt completely) and thus are left unresolved. When a person tries to avoid dealing with a hurt, by avoiding, stuffing or covering it over, that hurt is relegated to the negative band to accumulate with other hurts and false beliefs not resolved. This is one of the most important concepts that will need to be understood more fully because of the huge impact it has on the general mental health of people. This will be dealt with in a later chapter. You can start to see why it is referred to as the garbage pile. When one is able to penetrate the garbage pile completely and move through it, he or she leaves hurt, sadness and darkness behind and enters a realm of beautya place of light where truth and understanding reside. The real self, free of the effects of the garbage pile, is wholesome, lovable and capable. It is fair and judges as God would judge. The self loves all and would cringe at the thought of doing any harm to others, or to purposely do wrong. I believe that any one making the journey to the core of self would fall in love with themselves. Similarly, I believe that any body that becomes acquainted with the core self of anyone would like him or her. In therapy I would usually discuss the meaning of the graphic with my client and write the characteristics of the circles as we talked and would let them keep the drawing for further reference. This session usually took place after the client was given as much time or as many sessions as it took for them to be satisfied that they had been heard and understood and were ready to go to work. Of course, many of my clients only needed a few sessions of standard therapy. The ones in greater need, were the ones we engaged in feeling therapy. To increase the understanding of how this graphic might apply in the understanding of you, I have included a picture of the graphic in this chapter. Some Things I Have Learned from this Graphic Some characteristics of this graphic, that I noticed over time, from clinical experience, was that the pains experienced by clients, that were represented by the outer edge of the negative band, seemed to be of more recent years. The lesser pains were encountered first and became increasingly more painful the deeper they went, until reaching the outer edge of the circle that represented the real self. At that point, suicidal feelings became common due to the intensity of the pain. It helped me to see the reality that many who commit suicide do so to escape what seems to be unbearable pain. Of even more significance, it became obvious that helping a client to know that that pain also signaled that a healing breakthrough was imminent, would be important in helping the client make a better choice.

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A family of a couple I had once helped, asked me to help them to deal with a family tragedy. Their son and her brother had recently committed suicide. It seems that he had been somewhat rebellious during his youth and lived a life that was contrary to the family values. He had been into smoking and drinking alcohol as well as doing drugs. He had gotten married and he and his wife moved to the northwest part of the country. They had been there for about ten years when he and his wife divorced. The divorce was really hard on him, but motivated him to reform himself. He evidently decided to return to the values he was taught while growing up. He started to attend church and stopped smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking illicit drugs and seemed to be making excellent progressthen he committed suicide. Almost at once I thought I understood what had happened. I surmised that by eliminating all his pain killers at one time there was nothing to keep his pain from surfacing. I suspected that he might have slipped because of the tremendous pain and might have reverted to taking one or more of his previous pain killers. This only added more pain, by him berating himself for being weak and worthless putting himself down to the point that his pain became overwhelming and resulted in suicide. I believed that he was near a healing breakthrough. And that if he had understood that and knew how easy it would have been to achieve it, the result would have been wonderfully different. At the moment of the most intensive emotional pain, a person is usually most tense from resisting the pain. A huge chunk of the pain is from the tightening and resistance. If you feel like doing a test, just tighten your fist or strain any muscle and hold it for as long as you can. It will not be long before that tensed muscle will become unbearably painful. Isnt that how tension headaches are developed. It will usually take releasing the tensed muscle and then some minutes for recovery. In times of deep distress, with the feelings of weakness, hopelessness and impending doom, the last thing a person wants to do is to invite more of the same. As a result, the need for control is even more urgently felt and executed. The healing reality, however, is that the person going through the pain, needs to override his instincts and instead, relax and give up control and just let it happen. In this way the pain lock can be released allowing the relief and amazing healing to occur. Jean Jenson, M.S.W. gave an excellent analogy of this principle when she likened it to learning to turn into a skid on a slippery road instead of away from it to regain stability as most are inclined to do without experience.8 I have taught this principle to many clients and they have processed many a painful crises to growth and development rather than further tragedy and loss. Getting back to the family, at first I was reluctant to tell them how close he was to succeeding, but still decided that they needed the truth. I learned by my experiences as well as my clients that the harshest truths are easier to deal with than the softest falsehoods.

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I should have known, but the family was comforted by the knowledge that he was trying to reform his life, but just misjudged the nearness of his success and didnt have someone who understood to help him to reach the healing goal. Other Learnings from the Circles Graphic I noticed, over time, that many clients expressed the need to find themselves, or were not really sure who they were. I could understand them making those statements in view of the inner conflict between the internal expressions of the negative self and their real self. There were times when they might feel quite adult and Christ-like in their attitudes and then other times they might act mean and childish. Who were theythe child or responsible adult? I called the conflict between the negative self and the real self, dissonance. It is the source of much tension and stress in people. I noticed others who knew who they wereworthless bums. They had such a garbage pile that their true spirits selves were almost completely covered over to the extent that their true identity was lost to them. I am comforted by the knowledge that it is the real self that is eternal and will never die. And also by the thought that the negative and unreal self is only transitory. That it can be entirely eliminated from the self. I understand that the negative self that seems so permanent and unchangeable is in fact very vulnerable to change and even elimination. That is the very part of man that Jesus was and is charged with helping us eliminate. He will give man comfort and guidance to achieve that goal. Another Important Principle Discovered I found another important principle that latter-day revelation made clearer. One day, while thumbing through the scriptures, I came across a revelation that I had read before, but that had little impact on me at the time. It was found in the Doctrine and Covenants 88: 40. It reads as follows: For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth Truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgement goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things. As I ran the passage through my mind, I searched for the meaning. At first, I could see that the obvious meaning had to do with like being attracted to like intelligence to intelligence, wisdom to wisdom, truth to truth, virtue to virtue, light to light and so on. My attention becoming increasingly focused on the words of the passage, I noticed that the words were connected by power words cleaveth, receiveth, embraceth, loveth. I knew that the process being described here was not of a weak or passive nature. It seemed to be saying that the attraction of the words or principles mentioned here was strong. And would repel in a similar manner. In my minds eye, I could see that principle active in many

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spheres. People tend to gravitate to those they feel more comfortable with, people with shared values, shared experiences, similar cultures and so on. I compared opposites and listed a few for reviewintelligence and ignorance, wisdom and foolishness, truth and error, virtue and vice, light and darkness, mercy and callousness. I realized that opposite principles repelalso strongly. I continued to think on these thoughts, in the days that followed. One day I was sitting at my desk and was unconsciously toying with a small pair of magnets, each about an inch and a half by three quarters of an inch long. First, with the poles in the same direction and then in the opposite directions. I noticed when in the same direction they stuck to each other with quite some pull. When placed in opposite directions they, in fact, pushed away from each other. For a few minutes I got playful and chased one magnet around my desktop with the other between my fingers. Having come from a family of teachers, I could see the value of this set of magnets to demonstrate the principles to clients. As interesting as this was to me, it was nothing compared to my interest when the therapeutic value of this principle really hit me. I was looking at the three concentric circle graphic and reviewed the fact that the inner circle that represented the spirit of man that was full of truth and light and was residence of things holy and spiritual. While the unreal self, was the negative band composed of unfelt pain, hurt, anger, and false beliefs that was the realm in which Satan had influence. And I understood why the spirit of man had not absorbed the garbage pile. It also made sense that when the power of repentance is applied, an individual would really be cleansed and purified and made a new creature in Christ. Insights kept coming. I could see that in mans basic design is the power of self-healing. That power is most easily seen in the case of our physical healing. We recognize that mans physical body has built in processes to reject and expel foreign matter toxic to the body. When germs, for instance, get into the system the white corpuscles in the blood produce anti-bodies that surround the foreign cells and isolate them from the rest of the body and then more gross systems come into play to expel the encapsulated germ mass. We see these gross systems in action when one coughs, vomits, has diarrhea, sweats, or has a runny noseall systemic reactions to free the body of foreign or toxic matter. It is also the bodys power of self-healing that nits wounds and heals bruises. Now, I could see more clearly that the spirit of man is also designed to selfheal. The spirit is sensitive to anything foreign or toxic to it and, like the body, the spirit is ever vigilant to expel or free itself from whatever is toxic to it. It too encapsulates the spiritual toxins that are contained in the negative band that is the unreal self. Getting rid of the stuff in the negative band is to be done by other means especially designed for that purpose. As mentioned earlier, spiritual toxins are composed of painful life experiences that were not fully processed at the time they occurred, holding on to false beliefs and sins and transgressions. Getting rid of those toxins require that they be fully examined by the keeper of the Gate, which is your own mind and spirit, before they are allowed to exit. The problem is that the process of examination is painful. In the first place, past painful experiences seemed, or were, too painful to deal with at the time. So the

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experience needs to be completed now for relief. The good news is that it can be done easier now, because you are older and more experienced and hopefully know more. In the second place, sins and transgressions, though they may have even felt fun at the time, under the close contact with the spirit you will find out, consciously, how devastated and pained your spirit is over anything you might have done that is not consistent with truth and lightand it doesnt have to be a big thing. There is pain over anything done to you, by someone that violates you, that is not fully processed. In short, it is up to you to cooperate with your own spirit to complete the final step to free yourself and become what you ultimately can be. To fail to do so will result in you continuing to wonder who you are,experience chronic tension, anxiety, failure to find true peace and feel true joy. The excitement of this knowledge has never dimmed or gotten old to me. I still marvel when I think about it. By way of review, just think, the very thing that has concerned man for so long and has commanded so much attention and resourcesthe resolution of chronic tension, anxiety and emotional hurt and painis in fact, our spirits attempt to heal us. And that it is the very things we choose to do to get rid of the discomfort that makes the problem chronic. The alcohol, tobacco, elicit drugs and even many of the psychotropic drugs we take to control the uncomfortable feelings are the very things that prevent our healing. The methods of control just mentioned often exact a high price for the control we achieve. I am fully aware that there are many physical diseases and problems for which there are no known cures, but can at least be controlled. In that case, control is welcomed with thanks given. There are even many psychological problems that are relieved or controlled with medications. And thanks are given for those also. However, many of the psychological problems that are still considered incurable by the general public and many health professionals, are not incurable and that will increasingly be made more clear and obvious in the coming days. In that case, those that become aware and can find a resource will no longer have to trade control" for cure. More will be said about this later in the book. Now let us now move on in the search for the Healers Art by examining the Healer more closely.

Notes
1.McConkie, Bruce R. Mormon Doctrine. Bookcraft, 1966, p.516 ; (also Smith, Joseph Fielding, Man His Origin and Destiny. pp. 348-355.) 2. Ibid. pp. 163-164. 3. Ibid. p. 387. 4 Ibid. p. 387. 5. Talmage, James E. Jesus the Christ. 19th Edition, Salt Lake City, Ut.,Deseret Book Co.,1951. P. 116. 6. Mosiah 4: 29-30. 7. D. & C. 68: 25.

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8. Jenson, Jean, M.S.W. Reclaiming Your Life. A Meridian Book, 1995.

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Chapter 7
Jesus Christ Our Savior and Role Model
Understanding the Healers Art Better I would like to make some observations concerning Jesus mortal training and preparation for being a role model for his brothers and sisters in their mortal experience. We know that he had achieved the highest qualification as Gods eldest spirit child. By Him worlds were made: and He proved faithful in all things in His spirit existence. Let us look at his training as a mortal example. We know that inspite of being of royal lineage, belonging to the House of David, Jesus was raised in somewhat average or humble circumstances. He was the eldest son of Joseph, a carpenter, and his mother was Mary, who was chosen of God for this important role. She was a stay-at-home mom; as such he received the hands-on-care of his own mother and was tutored and shown the male role as modeled by his father Joseph. He was enabled to know intimately the male role and learned his trade directly from his father, becoming himself a carpenter by trade. He also had brothers and sisters and experienced the love, sacrifice, and give and take of family life. Even his birth, though humble, was actually royal as befitting the Son of God. As a result of experience with deep feeling therapy. I have seen first hand the intimate details of what people have gone through being born in modern hospitals. Thank heavens a lot has been changed to make being born more baby friendly. I must also give thanks for the many babies being saved today who would have otherwise perished without modern know-how and technology. Getting back to Jesus royal birth. After numerous sessions with clients during the reliving of their births, I noticed a number of things that at first were puzzling and then later I took them for granted. The following are some of the things I heard and saw: patients wincing from what seemed to be bright lights, expressing pain from loud noises, or the use of forceps during the birth, shuddering as if they were suddenly thrust into an ice box. Patients told me, after their sessions, of feeling the devastation of being separated from their mothers at birth. Male clients told of the pain of circumcision. Others told of being held upside down and spanked on the bottom, or of being deprived of oxygen when the umbilical cord was cut prematurely and others of the pain of not being wanted by their mothers. I saw enough to know that every thing that happens to us in life is faithfully recorded and stored someplace in the brain or cells and tissuesfrom birth until we pass from mortality. Dr. Arthur Janov and others engaged in deep, feeling therapy can attest to the reality of what I just said. A French physician named Leboyer had observed the effects of birthing practices on babies as they were being done in his day (recent practices). He believed the practices brought unnecessary discomfort to the babies. He also believed they would have long lasting negative effects on the babies.1 Notice on the group picture the only one who seems to be unhappy.

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He decided to do everything he could to make the birthing process more humane and less traumatic. The lights were dimmed, the noise level was toned down and the delivery room temperature was lowered. He also had the baby immediately placed in a tub of water that was body temperature. Photos were taken of babies with their eyes wide open, with big smiles on their faces as they comfortably bobbed in the water. The babies were then placed on their mothers tummies, where they both could connect and bond immediately. The babies were also delivered without the use of drugs that would render both the mother and the baby unable to help in the birthing experience.2 In currant days, fathers are more involved with the birth of their babies from the beginning and this has helped their bonding as well. Dr. LeBoyer wrote his findings in a book that has become a classic called Birth Without Violence. In a later study of 100 babies born and delivered in this manner, LeBoyer found that one hundred of the babies later proved to be ambidextrous. They could use either hand with equal facility. Dr. Leboyer concluded that this happened because of the less traumatic way they were welcomed into the world. There were fewer traumas, so the left and right hemispheres of the brain were balanced. By way of the longitudinal studies done, they found that those children were smarter and better coordinated, as a whole, than children delivered in the standard manner.3 A side note is important here. It is not birth that is traumatic, but traumatic birth that is traumatic. Normal birth is desirable for an obvious reason, but also for some reasons not so obvious. My wife and I only had one child born closely to the Leboyer method. Our youngest boy was born in the labor rooma single bed with dimmed lights. There was no narcotics or pain medicine administered. There was one big pain that sent me running for the doctor and before I reached the door our boy was born. He was ambidextrous and very well coordinated. He was athletically, intellectually and socially coordinated. His life was short, but during the eleven years he had he lived them very successfully. Getting back to the birth of Jesus, though he was born in a stable, his birth was royal. The weather was good because of the season of the year. His father was able to help with his birth. The birth was natural with no birth traumas noted or medications to numb either the baby or the mother. He was not separated immediately after his birth from his mother and so could bond with both parents from the start. The scriptures do not tell us much about his life between the ages of twelve and thirty when he began his mission. Luke the apostle told the well-known story of Jesus talking with the doctors in the temple when he was twelve years of age. (Luke 2:42-49) That was the time he said wist ye not that I must be about my fathers business? He seemed, at that age, to have had some idea of who he was. Luke covered the next eighteen years of Jesus life with fourteen words And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.(Luke 2: 52) Thus, we see that Jesus was brought up to be bright and capable of interacting with mature religious men of his timeeven doctors of religionand acquitting himself well. In all, he was prepared well in both body and spirit to be a good role model for us.

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Of course the sinless life he lived and the love and concern he had for all mankind, that was expressed in his numerous acts of service were of paramount importance. For the purposes of this book, I would like to look at some other things he modeled for us: One, the preparation he engaged in by fasting forty days and nights to get spiritually tuned up for his imminent mission as Savior of all mankind; two, the empathy he had for those he was charged with saving; and finally, the suffering he went through in Gethsemeny and on the cross. The Baptism of Jesus and the Forty-Day Fast When Jesus was about thirty years of age (Luke 3: 23) he was baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus said he was being baptized to fulfill all righteousness(Matt.3: 15) and to show that the Master is not exempt from the law: 16. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: 17. And lo a voice from heaven, saying This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So God acknowledged his relationship to Jesus and His satisfaction with him at the beginning of his missionat the same time giving Jesus His sanction. Then Jesus went into the wilderness and fasted for forty days and nights to prepare himself for his mission. This was to be the greatest mission ever served. After his extraordinary long fast, he was tempted of the devil. Satan tried to get Jesus to abort his mission before it even got started. At this point, since Jesus was enhungered from the fast, he was first tempted by physical hunger4; then by pride5 ; and finally by glory and power6. All of this failed to tempt the Savior. And after the devil departed, angels came and ministered into him.7 Jesus fast was important enough to have been mentioned in three of the four Gospels. John was the only one who did not comment on it in his Gospel. The Bible Dictionary in the Old and New Testament published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 19798 says: The fast has always played an important role in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fasting is a voluntary abstinence from food for developing spiritual strength that has always existed among true believers. It says that Jesus taught the religious principle (Matt.6: 16-18; 9: 15; Luke 4: 23). It was practiced in the early Christian church (Act. 13: 1-3; 14: 23; 1 Cor. 7: 5; 2Cor. 6:5; 11: 27). And it also has been confirmed to be important in latter-day revelation.(D&C 59: 13-14) Its value has been shown in connection with testimony bearing as it helps the bearer have greater access to feelings. Its use in Feeling Therapy is for the purpose of helping one more easily access feelings. It does that by eliminating the eating defense, which aids in accessing. It would usually be used only when the subject is new to the process and more shut down.
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Perhaps latter-day revelation has shown most clearly its value and use, as may be seen in the following scriptures found in Alma 17: 3 and 9. Alma met the four sons of Mosiah on their journey to return home from their fourteen-year mission to the Lamanites. They were overjoyed to learn of each others continuing faithfulness to the gospel. Alma was also pleased to learn of the tremendous success they had had in converting Lamanites. Alma commented that the sons of Mosiah: 3. were men of sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God. 4. But this is not all; they have given themselves to much prayer, and fasting; therefore they had the spirit of prophesy and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with the power and authority of God. 9. And it came to pass [when they first journeyed into Lamanite country] that they journeyed many days in the wilderness, and they fasted much and prayed much that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God to bring, if it were possible [to the Lamanites], the knowledge of the truth, to the knowledge of the baseness of the traditions of their fathers, which were not correct. (Emphasis added) Thus, we see that fasting and prayer are ways to prepare us to be closer to the spirit so as to gain added powers of prophesy and revelationas well as gain more confidence that the strength of God is with us in the pursuit of righteous goals. Jesus modeled this experience not only to show us how to gain spiritual strength, but also to show us the perils of Satans attempts to derail us with temptation. Jesusan Empathic Man The principles of Feeling Therapy are based on the idea that a fully feeling, empathic person is more likely to be healthymind spirit and bodythan one that is not. This is more easily observed in a mental, emotional and spiritual sense than physical. Anything that deviates in any degree from happy, wholesome, alert, caring, in a human being in any long-term chronic way is an indication of a feeling disorder. The human being is built to take sensory information from the environment, process it and make appropriate decisions that will ensure survival. It is designed to last a long time and continue to sense accurately, evaluate with precision and respond appropriately. It usually does, if kept healthy and maintained properly. However, man is not a machine. He has the power to make choices; this is necessary for many reasons including survival. Because of agency, a man can decide that if he doesnt like the sensory data he is receiving, he can just ignore it. If it is painful, as it sometime is, he can just turn down the volume or forget itplay like it never happened. Psychologically speaking, this is called suppression or fantasizing. Sometime reaction to painful stimuli can get beyond voluntary control. That is called repression. Although these tactics can give a person some relief from pain or from worry, fear or anxiety, it can also lead to a blunting of ones ability to feel. This blunting of feeling can range from minor deviations of normalcy to chronic hardening.
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The minor deviations go all the way from eccentric to chronically fearful, anxious, phobic and compulsive: the more serious deviations are characterized by those labeled mentally illschizophrenic, paranoid i.e. psychotic. The chronically hardened are those who show few signs of neurosis or psychoses. Their defenses are well entrenched. They are more readily identified as lacking empathy, conscience and do not keep the laws that have been established to govern normal social functioning in societies. They usually feel small and weak inside and therefore entitled to take short cuts to get what they want. These folks are harder to heal than those in the other categories because their feelings are more deeply buried. But since they are human they can be taught the principles of Deep Feeling Therapy and can be taught how to feel and therefore how to heal. There are degrees of hardening where those so afflictedand they are afflicted, even though the affliction is, for the most part, self administeredwill be able to function reasonably well in a society, but are not open to be guided by the Spirit of Truth. A spirit that could lead them to greater rewards than they could ever imagine. The scriptures are full of examples where the prophets or revelators have commented on those who cannot be taught the truth because they are hardhearted, blindminded, and stiff-neckedterms that denote those with blunted feelings. Some passages from scripture will be examined to see what the prophets say about this important concern. First well look at Almas recorded discussion with Zeezorum, that can be found in the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormon in Chapter 12: 9-11: 9. And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying: It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him. 10. And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full. 11. And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what the chains of hell mean.(Emphasis added) Apostle Paul wrote an epistle to the Ephesians in which he said, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. (Eph. 4: 17-19) Nephi said in 1 Nephi 14: 7 the following:

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For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a marvelous work among the children of men; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the othereither to the convincing of peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down to captivity, and also into destruction, both temporally and spiritually, according to the captivity of the devil, of which I have spoken. (Emphasis Added) Again in the Book of Mormon, Jaron, the son of Enos, in his short contribution to the book, wrote: 3. Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among the people, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the deafness of their ears, and the blindness of their minds, and the stiffness of their necks; nevertheless God is exceeding merciful unto them, and has not as yet swept them off from the face of the land. 4. And there are many among us who have many revelations, for they are not all stiffnecked. And as many as are not stiffnecked and have faith, have communion with the Holy Spirit, which maketh manifest unto the children of men, according to their faith.(Emphasis added) Finally, Alma made the following statement, which should be enough for now on this point: 13: 4. And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds. While, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren. (Emphasis added) On the other hand, the prophets have continually encouraged people who would be righteous to be lowly of heart (D&C 32:1), contrite (Psalms 34: 18), humble (1 Peter 5: 5), submissive and meek. In general this means to be non-defensive and teachable in yielding ones self unto God. Jesus was an excellent role model for us in this as well. He was love personified. He was a truly feeling person. When he and some of his disciples came to the Mount of Olives, which was near Bethphage and Bethany, ready to descend into Jerusalem, he paused while two of his disciples obtained a colt of an ass for him to ride. Once the colt was obtained and Jesus continued his descent into Jerusalem. As he neared the city his disciple Luke wrote And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it this in response to his awareness of future destruction that would come upon Jerusalem. In the gospel according to St.John, John gave an account of Jesus bringing Lasurus back to life (John 11: 1: 44): 32. Then Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hast been here, my brother had not died. 33. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which
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came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34. And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him Lord come and see. 35. Jesus wept. 36. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! (Emphasis added) Christ in America After the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ and his ascension into heaven, he visited the sheep of his other fold in the Western Hemisphere. The account of his visit is found in the Book of Mormon 3 Nephi chapters 11 through 26.He appeared to the people of Nephi gathered around the temple, which was in the land Bountiful. Again, Christ was introduced to the people by God the Father, who said, Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my namehear ye him. Then Jesus descended out of heaven, clothed in a white robe and stood among the people. He allowed the people to thrust their hands into his side and feel the prints of the nails in his hands and feet to confirm who he really was. Then he taught them his doctrine and chose twelve disciples and taught them how to baptize. He organized his church and gave the leaders the power and authority to baptize and administer the ordinances of salvation. He taught them the beatitudes much as he had at Jerusalem. Then he said to them: 17: 6. Behold my bowels are filled with compassion towards you. 7. Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed or leprous or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy. (Emphasis added) Then Jesus healed them all. Then he prayed to the Father for them and said such wonderful things that so great was the joy of the multitude that they were overcome. Then Jesus said to them: Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full. 21. And when he had said these words, he wept, and the multitude bare record of it, and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them. 22. And when he had done this he wept again; (Emphasis added) Much more was done, before Jesus ascension into heaven, which merits your reading the entire visit. I took a class on Archeology at the University of Utah around 1951 or 1952. The teacher was Professor Charles Dibble, a noted authority on early Central and South American archeology. He taught me and other students about a Mayan god who was described as being white skinned, and bearded. He was noted as being a healer and teacher. On some of the monuments representing him tears were depicted and he was

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known as the weeping god. I believe that Mayan god was Jesus Christ mentioned in the Book of Mormon just described. The Atonement The central purpose of mortality (earth life) was to provide a way for us, Gods children, to obtain physical bodies, and to get earthly experience as well as to prove ourselves. This was to be another refining time whereby those who were capable of being celestial parents were to be qualified. Central to that purpose was to provide a way for a spiritual cleansing to take place. The cleansing was necessary so that the effects of sin could be completely eliminated from the self. Only a being free from sin would be able to be in the presence of Godand feel comfortable or survive. The total means of accomplishing that purpose was known as the Atonement. Its meaning is more easily recognized when reading the separate words that make up the word Atonementat-one-ment. The Atonement is the process of uniting us once again with our heavenly parents following our trip to mortality. However, as is the case with all truth, the meaning of this truth is multifaceted. The At-one-ment or Atonement not only makes unity with God possible, but brings us to becoming at one with truth, at one with ourselves and at one with all humanity as well. Jesus set the model for behavior and spiritual worthiness. Every principle he taught he also modeledthat being the highest form of teaching. And thus it was with the Atonement. First, he lived a sinless life. Second, he did what was right regardless of the earthly consequences. Then he modeled the exact behavior we should follow as we go through our own cleansing process on our way to being reconciled with God. The most important part of Jesussacrifice, for us, took place in the Garden of Gesthemane. Jesus experience in Gesthemane was an example to all mankind. He had a job to do and not withstanding the extremely difficult and painful nature of his challenge he meekly submitted to the will of the Father and did what he had to do. Accounts of this experience are found in three of the Gospels. In Mathew (Matt.26: 36-46) we read the following: 37. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee[James and John], and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. 38. Then saith he unto them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. 39. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. 40. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? 41. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. 42. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done. 43. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. (Emphasis added)
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We can see from the foregoing that the pain he experienced was deep sorrow that felt as though he would die. The experience was so painful that he wanted the support of his closest supporters. He did not resist or fight against the powerful feelings, but gave himself over to the Fathers will. He faced it in the attitude of prayer and went to the experience three times before he was through. The Gospel of Mark says essentially the same as Mathew. The Gospel of John does not give any details about the suffering. It dismisses the episode by saying only When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into which he entered, and his disciples. (John 18:1) We get some more detail from Luke. Namely: One, that he was strengthened by an angel from heaven (Luke 22:43); two, that his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground; (Luke 22: 44) and three, that the disciples were sleeping for sorrow, (Luke 22: 45) It is of parenthetical interest, that according to Luke, the disciples were not sleeping because they didnt care or were just tired, they were overcome with sorrow and used sleep to escape the pain. Jesus warned them against falling into temptation. (Luke 22: 46) In their case the temptation was falling asleep. It is common for people under stress to escape into sleep. It may be noted that Luke was known as the physician. He noticed some things that others might have just passed over, because of his medical knowledge and interests. For example, he was the only one that noticed and wrote about the time Jesus shed tears over Jerusalem, prior to his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. Jesus main purpose in Gethsemane was to take the sins of the world upon him and suffer for them. Jesus did suffer as evidenced by the physical tension his body went through, so great that he bled at every pore. Also, according to Apostle James E. Talmage Christ died of a broken heart.9 His experience was not a feeling or repenting process, as he had nothing to repent of: he had no dissonance within himself. He had no sin and therefore no need to repent. The exact mechanics of how he took the suffering of all people on himself is not known, but that he suffered beyond the capacity of one person is certain. He went through something that, according to the laws of cosmic justice was not fair because he was sinless. Also, according to those same laws of justice, Jesus earned the right to ask for something in return. He asked that all people that truly repented of their sins would not have to suffer because he had already suffered for them. It is recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, that he suffered that all mankind would not have to suffer if they would repent; but, if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and suffer both body and spirit10 It was necessary for Christ to understand the temptations, the hurts, sickness and afflictions of all men in order to be able to comfort and succor them. No person can honestly say that Jesus does not understand what he or she is going through, because he has experienced the pain of every mortal experience possible. Alma preached the following:

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11.And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. 12. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.11 (emphasis added) Jesus understands perfectly the human condition because of what he has gone through and thus can identify completely with us. Establishing the rapport and oneness that is necessary in a mutual relationship, such as the one he is trying to establish with us and, hopefully, we with him, have to be more than one way. We have our part to do as well. One of the conditions was that we would not suffer if we would repent. It is clear that he does not want us to suffer, but he does want us to repent. Suffering vs. Repenting At this point it is important for us to understand the difference between suffering and repenting. It is obvious, from the earlier quoted scripture, that these words mean something entirely different. Yet, in some ways they are similar. Remember that earlier in this book we discussed the meaning of repentance. Repentance was said to mean to feel deeply and was also known as Godly sorrow. It is a means of correcting for the consequences of sin and transgression. It is similar to suffering in that there is the experiencing of some pain involved. However, that is where the similarity ends. True repentance (feeling) leads to healing, while suffering leads to endless suffering. Suffering comes from failing to feel (repent). It is feeling enough to be miserable, but not enough to heal. The sign that true repentance has occurred is that the relief and healing or behavior change takes place and is permanent. The sign that one is in a suffering syndrome is that the suffering goes on and on and gets worse and worse branching out taking over ones life. Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, when he was Church commissioner of Education, in 1977 writing about repentance said, Repentance of necessity involves suffering and sorrow. Anyone who thinks otherwise has not read the life of the young Alma, nor tried personally to repent. In the process of repentance we are granted just a taste of the suffering we would endure if we failed to turn away from evil.12 That taste of suffering on the way to full repentance gives the repentant one other gift that is truly wonderful; that gift is to understand infinitely more and truly appreciate Christs sacrifice for him or her. That completes the bonding with Christthey now can empathize more fully with him. Many of my clients have expressed having had such an experience and said they feel so much closer to him and feel greatly saddened by the pain he went through as a result. That is an important part of the atonementthe coming together. Summary

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It is important that we follow the example of the Exemplar of all, Jesus. We need to live truth because, though not always easy, it is right. And being right it will always work out better in the overall scheme of things. We also need to work toward being a feeling person. Though that takes facing some unpleasant feelings at times the alternative is too costly, in terms of health, happiness and spirituality, to ignore. And finally, we need to face our Gethsemanes as Christ did. Though his Gethsemane was infinitely more painful than any thing we would go through, and the benefits would far outweigh anything ours might achieve, the reward for us will be substantial. Think of it. First and most important, it will help bring about the achievement of our first goal in coming to earthto become more like our heavenly parents and be reunited once again living Eternal lives. The earth life we live will be more like the Eternal life we will live hereafter and the benefit to our posterity now and forever will be incalculable.

Notes
1. Leboyer, Frederick, Birth Without Violence. Healing Arts Press, Rochester, VT. Originally published in France 1974, 1st Healing Arts Press Edition 1974, 1st U.S. Edition 1975 Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 2. Janov, Arthur, The Biology of Love. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2002, pp. 253-254. 3. Leboyer study. 4. St. Matt. 4:3. 5. St. Matt. 4:6. 6. St. Matt. 4:8-9. 7. St. Matt. 4:11. 8. The Holy Bible. Bible Dictionary, Fasts, King James Version, published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1970, p. 671. 9. Talmage, James E., Jesus the Christ. Nineteenth Ed, Salt Lake City, Ut. Deseret Book Co. 1951, pp.668-669. 10. D.& C. 19:15-18. 11. Alma 7:11-12. 12. Holland Jeffrey R., The Ensign. Alma, Son of Alma, Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Ut., March 1977, p.81.

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Chapter 8
Latter-Day Experiences that Enlarge the Understanding
A nationally well known news commentator was once asked what, in his opinion, would be the single most important news the world could receive in our day. His response was brief, but without hesitation,That God had once again spoken to man! The good news is that God has once again spokenand in our time. The bad news is that most of the inhabitants of earth seem to care less, or have no idea it happened. This most important event took place near Palmyra, New York early in the spring of 1820. A young boy just fourteen years of age, named Joseph Smith, lived on his fathers farm a short distance from Palmyra in upstate New York. It was in a time of much religious interest, but also unrest. There was a corner in the commercial center of the small town on which a number of Protestant churches were vying for adherents to fill their congregations. He mentioned three sects that contended for converts, stirring up a lot of heat and confusionBaptists, Methodists and Presbyterian. The thing that was most upsetting to young Joseph was that his mother, two brothers and a sister had joined the Presbyterian Church, while he found himself leaning towards the Methodists. His father, Joseph Smith Sr., was a religious man but was looking for a church more like the early Christian churchhe didnt agree with any of the contending churches. Because of the conflict between the different denominations and the impact it had on his family, Joseph was very troubled. One day while reading in the Bible he came upon a passage in the Book of James that said If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and up-braideth not; and it shall be given him.1 This passage of scripture entered his heart with great power. He thought that if anyone needed more wisdom it was him. Accordingly he went to a secluded place, near his fathers farm, where he could pray. He said it was the first time in his life he prayed vocally. The following is his personal description of what took place: 15.... I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when Immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. 16. But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destructionnot to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any beingjust at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until if fell upon me. 17. It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy that held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages. Whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of

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them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other'This is My Beloved Son, Hear Him!' 18. My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of my self, so as to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)and which I should join. 19. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. 20. He again forbade me, to join with any of them; and many other things did he say to me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to my self again, I found my self lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering to some degree, I went home.2 (Emphasis added) The rest of the story can be found in the Joseph Smith History.3 I would like to look at Joseph Smiths vision from the standpoint of what we have been learning from the experiences with Deep Feeling Therapy. We know that all men, save Jesus, have a region of darkness near the surface that can easily be accessed by accident or design. The makeup of each persons negative band is unique because the specifics of their life experiences are different; however, in general the contents are of a similar nature and are toxic to the spirit. It is the region in which Satan has his influence. We know that very good people can have experiences that were life threatening, even pre-birth experiences, that once accessed can be very frightening and threatening. Because of the important work Joseph was destined to do, that of restoring the gospel once more to the earth in its fullness, would certainly warrant Satans personal attention, but would not be necessary to account for the experience Joseph had. We also know that if "felt" with courage and faith a quick release can be effected and in its place the core of self can be found: The core that is love, strength, intelligence, and godlinessthe heritage of our celestial parentage. It is in this spiritual condition that man can commune with God and live. Because the process is so powerful and takes so much energy, one going through it might find themselves, as did Joseph Smith, "lying on [his] back and looking into heaven" and "having no strength" when it was over. He later called this experience a "vision." There was three-way conversation in which Joseph received the answer to his religious dilemma and he saw first hand the true nature of God the Father and his son Jesus Christ. The truth long lost to the world, the reality of who and what God is and the nature of the trinity, was shown to Joseph Smith after he had "put off the natural man" and gotten into the realm of light and spirituality which could allow him to be in the presence of Deity. Because of the deep feeling work I have done. When helping a client access his or her feelings, I generally find it easier on the client and better results obtained when

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following the example set forth by Alma, King Lamoni, his father, and others by having my client resting in a secure, comfortable place in a prone position where they can feel secure. This pattern, though very well known and understood by prophets in the Book of Mormon times, is often seen as unusual in current times, when chatting while sitting in chairs is the common practice. Of course there is nothing wrong with sitting and chatting in counseling and casual teachinginfact it is expectedbut for serious healing it seems to work better in the prone position. This is due to the fact that the access of feelings in this manner is infinitely more intense and penetrating. The attention focus is so strong that the one doing the accessing feels safer without having to worry about falling. Moses Sees God Moses had a similar experience that is recorded in the Pearl of Great Price.4 It appears, in the first part of the chapter, that Moses was in the presence of God and that the presence of God withdrew and his glory was not upon Moses so that he fell unto the earth and lost his natural strength for several hours. At this time he felt the insignificance of man. At this point Satan came tempting. Moses was able to judge between God and Satan because he had Gods glory upon him (Moses 1:18) and he rebuffed Satan. Satan yelled at him and Moses wavered for a moment: Moses 1: 20 And it came to pass that Moses began to fear exceedingly; and as he began to fear, he saw the bitterness of hell. Nevertheless, calling upon God, he received strength (Empasis added) He rebuked Satan a second time, And it came to pass that Satan cried with a loud voice, with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; and he departed hence, And then Moses, filled with the Holy Ghost (Moses l: 24), was able to view the whole earth and all its inhabitants (Moses 1:27), Andthe glory of the Lord was upon Moses, so that Moses stood in the presence of God and talked with him faces to face, (Moses 1:31) In a review of the whole experience, it seems that Moses was able to get in touch with God and as such was in touch with his own spirit selfthe region of light and truth in which contact with God is possible. This was the case when Joseph Smith communed with God. However, he came out of that state and his fears put him in the region of darkness, or the negative self overwhich Satan has power and he saw the bitterness of hell. Having experienced contact with God earlier, he had increased ability to resist temptation and reject Satan which then led to his subsequent reestablishment of contact with God and the region of light within him. Thus, he was able to see the earth in its entirety and conversed with God once again.

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As I felt that Jesus was the supreme role model for usHis brothers and sistersI also believe that in addition to Jesus there are many other role models that we can strive to pattern ourselves after as well. We will discuss more of these examples throughout the following pages of this book. For now, since we are talking about Joseph Smith, I believe him to be an excellent role model for us in these latter days. Keep in mind that there are so many books on the character and qualities of Jesus and Joseph Smith and others that we can learn from and apply in our lives, that I wont venture into those areas. Others can better cover them. As such, I will stick to those things that apply to the Healers Art. We know that Joseph Smith had many visitations with resurrected beings in the process of receiving essential Priesthood keys. We believe that they were marvelous in their own way, but probably not as dramatic as was his visit with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Joseph SmithThe Man One day in 1977, while reading in the Ensign Magazine, I came across an article about Joseph Smith. The article was called The Character of Joseph Smith written by Richard Bushman.5 Brother Bushman was looking at Joseph Smith as a father, a friend, a husband, and a man. (Ibid. p.11) he concluded that Joseph was seeking salvation for himself as well as being Prophet, Seer and Revelator for the Church. The Prophet passed through cycles of uneasiness and serenity on the way to achieve that radiant forcefulness so characteristic of him. (p.11) He said it was not his nature to brood. His own description of his native, cheery temperament seems to have held throughout his life. But the occasional evidence of personal misgiving shows us that Joseph Smith did not glide effortlessly into perfection. His remarkable personal strengths were the outcome of battles with temptation and occasional setbacks. Joseph, when he was in jail on false charges, loved his family and missed them terribly. He was a feeling man and did not disguise his feelings. He expressed his love for others unashamedly and likewise dealt directly with those he had issue with He loved people and it showed. Against outright traitors, the Prophets wrath could be as blunt, direct, and unyielding as his love for his friends. (p.13) I believe that because Joseph was a feeling man and he was up front with his emotions, he was more emotionally flexible and thus able to deal with and recover better from the many indignities and trials with which he was confronted as Prophet. For the purposes of this book, I would like to review a few entries from Josephs diary that may give us some insight into Josephs ability to survive the extraordinary challenges that were his. Brother Bushman included in his article the following quote: After the vision, even small transgressions were a wound upon my soul, and that deep regret over personal failings lingered with him as he strove to make himself perfectly worthy. (p.4) He quoted Joseph as writing a letter to Emma in June of 1832 in which he wrote, I have visited a grove [of trees] which is just back of town almost every day. There I can be Secluded from the eyes of any mortal and there give vent to all the feelings of my heart in meditation and prayer. I have called to mind all the past moments of my life and am left to mourn and Shed tears of sorrow for my folly in Suffering the adversary of my Soul to have so much power over me as he has had in times past.

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First, note that Joseph sent his letter to Emma in 1832 while he was away from home. That was two years after the Church was first organized. The ordinance of baptism was already performed and the repentance necessary for church membership had already been accomplished and yet he was still working toward perfecting himself. We can conclude from this that using the principal of repentance is not a one-time thing, but that it is a principle to be employed every day of our lives if we wish to move steadily on toward perfection. It is a fact that if some sin is truly repented of, the temptation to commit the same sin again will be eliminatedor it is not true repentance. It is also true that with true repentance of other sins an individual becomes increasingly relieved of the burdens of sin: Until the person moves step by step toward the ultimate goal of perfection. I have heard it said that Joseph Smith has said that complete perfection would not be achieved by most people during the short span of mortal life; more work would have to be done in the hereafter; so there will be room for a lot of polishing of the rough edges, you can be sure. Secondly, note that the experience of the vision had a profound effect on his feeling sensitivity afterward; he said that small transgressions were a wound upon his soul. Recall also that Joseph said it was not his nature to commit grievous sins. He said this: 28. During the space of time which intervened between the time I had the vision and the year eighteen hundred and twenty-threehaving been forbidden to join any of the religious sects of the day, and being of very tender years, and persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends and to have treated me kindly, and if they supposed me to be deluded to have endeavored in a proper and affectionate manner to have reclaimed meI was left to all kinds of temptations; and, mingling with all kinds of society, I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature. But I was guilty of levity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc. not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been. But this will not seem strange to any one who recollects my youth, and is acquainted with my native cheery temperament.6 (Emphasis added)

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Note finally, that a method used to polish his rough edges was to mourn and shed tears or sorrow for his small transgressions andgive vent to the feelings of his heart. We dont know how long he processed his feelings in this manner at this time, but he did say almost every day which infers at the least two or more times. This was not an uncommon practice for him if the need was there it seems. Another ProphetLike Joseph While we are still here, I am brought to mind of another prophet who, in some ways can be compared to the experience of JosephNephi son of Lehi. The following writing of Nephi has been referred to as Nephis soliloquy. Soliloquy is defined in Websters dictionary as lines in a drama in which the character reveals his thoughts to the audience, but not to the other characters, by speaking as if to himself.7 He begins his soliloquy in poetic fashion: 17.O wretched man that I am! Yea my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities. 18. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and sins which do so easily beset me. 19. And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless I know in whom I have trusted. Then he continues on to recount the many things God has done for him. 20. My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep. 21. He hath filled me with his love, even to the consuming of my flesh. 22. He hath confounded mine enemies, into causing them to quake before me. 23. Behold, he hath heard my cry by day, and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the nighttime. The next two verses, he poses the question, with all his blessings, why does he "give way to temptation": 26. O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should I weep and my strength slacken, because of my afflictions? 27. And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy? The next eight verses (29-35) were of rejoicing, giving thanks and offering prayers to the Lord to continue to protect him and avowing his determination to remain steadfast in putting his faith in the Lord and not in man.8 Many years ago, while reading in the Ensign Magazine in the Questions and Answers section, someone asked the question, how stalwart prophets such as Joseph Smith and Nephi, could be so concerned with temptations to do wrong such as they had

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expressed in their writings. The person answering the question said, in effect, that they were so righteous that they judged themselves by a stricter standard then do others. I have found, in doing deep feeling therapy, that as people eliminate more and more of their emotional garbage, they become more and more feeling. The essence of repenting is feeling profoundly the dissonance inside ones self, between right and wrong, truth and error, light and darkness. It stands to reason that as the garbage is eliminated a person will not only feel better (because the dissonance is decreased), but the core of self will become more sensitive to emotional and spiritual toxins. As such, a person will find that what he or she might have allowed themselves to co-exist with before they are no longer willing to do so. It is true that they have a greater sense of right and wrong and a desire to become better and better, but interestingly they do not become "perfectionists"just healthier people. A Current Day Example of Alma theYoungers Rebirth Experience I first became aware of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in the early 1970s probably shortly after she published her book On Death and Dying in 1971. She was a Swiss physician who moved to the United States when she was around 47 years of age. She had spent untold hours with patients who were terminally ill. She learned a lot from her patients and felt that what she learned from them needed to be shared with others. The current medical practices at that time was to keep the dying patient protected from the knowledge of their impending death as long as possible, so as to spare them the added stress of knowing. The physicians would share the details with close family members, but the patient was usually the last to know. Elizabeth talked directly with the dying and found out how they really felt and what they wanted. The results of what she learned from her patients formed the bases for her book. Essentially, she found that her patients felt isolated from loved ones that knew something about their dying that they didnt. The loved ones inadvertently sent out subtle signals the dying, for lack of information, couldnt accurately interpret. The dying received messages that said the loved ones were uncomfortable discussing the very thing that was foremost on their mindthe status of their own health. The book was an important book that changed the way the dying were dealt with. She became a foremost authority on Thanatology (death and dying) and was often called upon to share her knowledge on the lecture circuit.9 There are three things that I want to share with you about Elizabeths story that has import for our purposes. First, what she found out about stages of grief that are commonly shared by those facing death or tragic loss; secondly, an experience she went through one time on the lecture circuit; and thirdly, the value the dying place on knowing the truth verses being protected. First, Elizabeth observed that the dying patients she had close contact with, went through a pattern that was similar to each other when dealing with their impending death. Eventually, though the patterns were not identical, in general ways, the way they processed their deaths could be predicted. She said that upon learning of their impending death, they would at first react with denial. Then when reality would finally remove the possibility of denial they would bargain with God; If you will only heal me (or my child, etc.) I will be a good person

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and work the rest of my life for you. When reality continues unchanged and their impending death moves relentlessly on, the person would most often get angry at being " rebuffed" by God. After the anger and rage plays out, they would settle into a pattern of grieving for the losses and changes that death would bring. Finally, if the dying is given enough time before death, they will arrive at a point of acceptance and peace. At this point they are able to take care of business and are better prepared for their own imminent death. She concluded that the dying should, if possible, be given all the time needed to arrive at resolution and peace before they die. One reason I found this knowledge important, is that it closely parallels what happens to anyone faced with serious loss or trauma: First, denial, then anger, hurt and finally resolution. The healing sessions I have been involved with generally follow this pattern within a two hour period of time if allowed to be processed fully. The alternative is to break up the natural processing and leave the person with unresolved stress at the point of interference. Break it up at the stage of anger and anger lingers on; if the interference comes at the hurt level, the same happens; even at resolution, without a chance to talk about their experience something is lost. Point number two, I would like to take time to go over an event that happened to Elizabeth while on the lecture circuit. She described the experience to Ann Nietzke, who was a contributing editor to Human Behavior Magazine, as follows: That night the sleeping arrangements where I was were such that I ended up sleeping alone in a very isolated guesthouse, and I was in a questioning sort of conflict, feeling that should I actually go to sleep there, something horrendous would happen. I thought of taking a room in a motel and asking to be in the presence of other human beings, but at that moment I contemplated my alternatives, I knew that I had gone too far and could not back out. I had to finish up what I had startedthats all I knew at the moment. So I went into that house, and I knew the imminence of something horrendousnot horrible, but horrendous would happen. I couldnt sleep, and I couldnt stay awake. I wanted to sleep to avoid it, but at the same time knew I couldnt avoid it. And then I had one of the most incredible experiences of my life. In one sentence: I went through every single death of every single one of my thousand patients. And I mean the physical pain, the dyspnea, the agony, the screaming for help. The pain was beyond any description. There was no time to think and no time for anything except that twice I caught a breath, like between two labor pains. I was able to catch my breath like for a split second, and I pleaded, I guess with God, for a shoulder to lean on, for one human shoulder, and I visualized a mans shoulder that I could put my head on. And a thunderous voice came: You shall not be given. Those words and then I went back to my agony and pain and dyspnea and doubling up in the bed. But I was awake, I mean it wasnt a dream. I was reliving every single death of every one of my dying patientsand every aspect of it not just the physical. Then about an eternity later, I begged for a hand to hold. My fantasy was that a hand would come up on the right side of the bed and I could hold it. And then again this voice: You shall not be given. Then you know, there was the whole self-pity trip I went through: Ive held so many hands, and yet Im not to have

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even one hand in my hour of agonythat whole thing. [She laughs.] I didnt have time to think of all this, but it was all part of the agony. Then for a moment I contemplated whether I should ask for a fingertipa fingertip I couldnt hold on to, but at least I would know about the presence of another human being. But typically me, I said, Dammit, no. If I cant get one hand, I dont want a fingertip either. That was my final outpouring of rage an indignity at God or whoever, that I didnt want a fingertip if I couldnt have a hand. It was something like anger or defiance, but also the realization that in the ultimate agony you have to do it alonenobody can do it for you. Once I realized this, I said in almost a challenging wayand again this was not in words but in experienceOkay. Give it to me. Whatever it is that I have to take, I am ready to take it. I guess by then the agony and painand this went on for hourswere so great that 10,000 more deaths wouldnt have made any difference, since all the pain you could endure was already there anyway. But the second I said yes to it and really meant it from the bottom of my heart, the moment I felt the confidence that I could actually take what ever came, all the dypsnea, hemorrhage, pain and agony disappeared in one split second, and out of it came the most incredible rebirth experience. It was so beautiful there are no words to describe it.(Emphasis added) She went on to do her best to describe the awesomely beautiful feeling experience she had. It would be like taking the most joyous feeling you have ever had and timing it by a thousand and it would still be a feeble comparison. In short she said We have no words for it, really. We have very inadequate language. She went on to say: And then the next morning as I walked outside it was incredible, because I was in love with every leaf, every tree, every birdeven the pebbles. I know I didnt walk on the pebbles but a little above them. And I kept saying to the pebbles I cant step on you because I cant hurt you. They were alive as I was, and I was part of this whole alive universe. . I have had many experiences like this since, always spontaneously when I least expect themThis is the reward for all the pain and agony that people have to go through.10 (Emphasis added to forgoing text) It seems, in the just related experience, that it happened in the evening and she was probably tired. The normal defenses as a consequence were down. She was alone and isolated and this added to her vulnerability. She had a sense of internal conflict that soon elevated to a feeling that something horrendous was about to happen if she stayed there. She recognized that by now she was past the point of being able to leave. The horrendous feeling was prelude to experiencing every single death of [her] thousand patients. Evidently, in spite of her empathy and caring, she was still unable to process fully all the deaths of her patients. The time and opportunity came when her defenses were down, allowing her spirits natural inclination to do some house cleaning. Then she sought for support in her time of distress, but eventually recognized that in ones ultimate agony they have to do it alone. Then came acceptance and surrender. With

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surrender came instant release,rebirth, a feeling of incredible love and being at one with the universe. It also prepared her to have more rebirth experiences. Elizabeth Kubler Rosss experience seems to parallel Almas experience in many ways. Though, it was not three days and nights long, it was extremely painful, did result in a joyful experience that matched the intensity of the pain and was life changing. They both described what they went through as a rebirth experience. You should note also that there are many similarities with other deep feeling experiences already documented in this book. The third item I will touch upon briefly, is that the harshest truth is easier to deal than the softest falsehood. Dr. Ross found out, from her work with the dying, that this statement is true. While ones demise is not usually welcome news, most people would rather know, with enough time to prepare for it, than be kept in the dark about it in the mistaken belief that it would be a kindness. I have believed this for many years; especially since an incident that happened a few years after Ruth and I married. At that time Ruth found out that her thirty-one year old brother (in 1964) had cancer. He wanted to spare his parents the grief of knowing about his cancer for as long as possible, so he asked his siblings not to tell his parents. It turned out that his tumor was malignant and he only lived about six weeks after first discovering a lump under his armpit. Their father expressed great sadness and disappointment over not being trusted with that important news as soon as it was known. That was indeed sobering. Another Story of More Recent TimeSpencer W. Kimball Spencer W. Kimball told this story. He became the 12th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The story started on July 8, 1943 with a phone call to brother Kimball from Salt Lake. The call was from J.Reuben Clark Jr.(his cousin) who was a counselor to President Heber J. Grant, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. President Clarks words came with strength and unmistakable power to Spencer who answered with a quivering voice. President Clark told Spencer that he had been called to fill a vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Spencer was stunned and shocked by the call and felt profoundly inadequate to fulfill such a high calling. In spite of his stunned state, he agreed to meet with the brethren the following week to discuss the calling. In the aftermath of the call, Spencer went through seemingly endless waves of feelings of inadequacy and unbelief, but never vacillated on his commitment to accept the call. When a thought of what the family would give up Then would come the thought When the Church calls, we obey. But the predominant thought was my own limitations and incapacitys and weaknesses and I was overcome. The tears came then, an inexhaustible flood. It had been years since I had shed a tear. Scores of funeral sermons I had preached, I had closed eyes in death, I had seen mothers taken from their little ones and yet I had reached the point where I had perfect control of my emotions. But now uncontrollable, I wept and wept. It seemed that all conflicting thoughts of my mind were trying to wash themselves clean with tears. I was in convulsions of sobbing. My wife was sitting by me on the floor, stroking my hair, trying to quiet me. The following days were filled with necessary activities while the nights made way for more tears and prayers, but little sleep.

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Spencer had planned to visit his son Spencer LeVan who lived in Boulder, Colorado and then fly over the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City for the visit with the brethren. They reached Denver on July 13th and met Spencer LeVan and his wife and baby. Then took the train the remaining distance to Boulder. Though tired, Spencer was still unable to sleep well and he was up at the break of day Wednesday, the 14th of July. After he dressed and slipped out of the house he had a most marvelous healing experience that was included in his biography. In his own words he gave the following description: It was breaking day this Wednesday, the 14 th of July. No peace had come, though I had prayed for it almost unceasingly these six days and nights. I had no plan or destination. I only knew I must get out in the open, apart, away. I dressed quietly and without disturbing the family, I slipped out of the house. I turned toward the hills. I had no objective. I wanted only to be alone. I had begun a fast. The way was rough, I wandered aimlessly and finally came to the top of the hill. I nearly stepped on a snake coiled on my path. An unexplainable sudden strength sent me into a high jump over his striking head. Could this be symbolic of my other worries and problems? I stopped to rest, thinking that here I was alone, but cows were near and people stirring in the homes below. Over the little ridge was a sloping little valley and up on the other side the high mountain rose rapidly and further up almost precipitously to a high peak far above. Without thought I found my way down and started up again on the other side. The grass was ankle deep and seeds fell into my shoes. The lower reaches had been pastured by cattle when it was wet and it was pitted with deep hoof prints. The rocks on the hillside increased in quantity and size. My weakness overcame me again. Hot tears came flooding down my cheeks as I made no effort to mop them up. I was accusing myself, and condemning myself and upbraiding myself. I was praying aloud for special blessings from the Lord. I was telling Him that I had not asked for this position, that I was incapable of doing the work, that I was imperfect and weak and human, that I was unworthy of so noble a calling, though I had tried hard and my heart had been right. I knew that I must have been at least partly responsible for offenses and misunderstandings which a few people fancied they had met at my hands. I realized that I had been petty and small many times. I did not spare myself. A thousand things passed through my mind. Was I called by revelation? Or, had the Brethren been impressed by the recent contacts in my home and stake when they visited us, or by the accounts of my work in the flood rehabilitation which reports I knew had been greatly exaggerated in my favor? Had I been called because of my relationship to one of the First Presidency? If I could only have the assurance that my call had been inspired most of my other worries would be dissipated. I knew if the Lord had revealed to the Brethren that I was to be one of His leaders, that He would forgive all my weaknesses and make me strong. I knew full well that He knew all the imperfections of my life and He knew my heart. And I knew that I must have His acceptance before I could go on. I stumbled up the hill and onto the

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mountain, as the way became rough. I faltered some as the way became steep. No paths were there to follow; I climbed on and on. Never had I prayed before as I now prayed. What I wanted and felt I must have was an assurance that I was acceptable to the Lord. I told Him that I neither wanted nor was worthy of a vision or appearance of angels or any special manifestation. I wanted only the calm peaceful assurance that my offering was accepted. Never before had I been tortured as I was now being tortured. And the assurance did not come. I was getting higher and the air thinner and I was reaching some cliffs and jagged rocky points. I came to a steep slide area and it was almost impossible to make the grade. I stumbled over an old oak stick which I picked up. I broke off one end and it was exactly the right length for a cane. It was rough and a little crooked and worm-eaten in places, but it helped me climb. I stopped to catch my breath in a protected cove behind some large rocks but unsatisfied I continued to climb, up steep jagged rocks made more difficult of scaling by my tear-filled eyes. As I rounded a promontory I saw immediately above me the peak of the mountain and on the peak a huge cross with its arms silhouetted against the blue sky beyond. It was just an ordinary cross made of two large heavy limbs of a tree, but in my frame of mind, and coming on it so unexpectedly, it seemed a sacred omen. It seemed to promise that here on this cross, on this peak, I might get the answer for which I had been praying intermittently for six days and nights and constantly and with all the power at my command these hours of final torture. I threw myself on the ground and wept and prayed and pleaded with the Lord to let me know where I stood. I thought of my Father and Mother and my Grandfather, Heber C. Kimball, and all my other relatives that had been passed from the earth for long years and wondered what part they had had, if any, in this call, and if they approved of me and felt that I would qualify. I wondered if they had influenced, in any way, the decision that I should be called. I felt strangely near them, nearer than ever in my life. I mentally beat myself and chastised myself and accused myself. As the sun came up and moved in the sky I moved with it, lying in the sun, and still I received no relief. I sat up on the cliff and strange thoughts came to me: all this anguish and suffering could be ended so easily from this high cliff and then came to my mind the temptations of the Master when he was tempted to cast Himself downthen I was ashamed for having placed myself in a comparable position and trying to be dramatic. I looked out over the beautiful world below, stretching out to the horizon, with its lovely homes, fertile fields and prosperous businesses and I was reminded that I had had a small part of the world and was in a position that I could get more and more of it, and that I was asked to give up part of it; then I was filled with remorse because I felt I had cheapened the experiences of the Lord, having compared mine with His. Again I lay on the cool earth. The thought came that I might take cold, but what did it matter now. There was one great desire, to get a testimony of my calling, to know that it was not human and inspired by ulterior motives, kindly as they might be. How I prayed! How I suffered! How I wept! How I struggled!

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Was it a dream which came to me? I was weary and I think I went to sleep for a little. It seemed that in a dream I saw my grandfather and became conscious of the great work he had done. I cannot say that it was a vision, but I do know that with this new experience came a calm like the dying wind, the quieting wave after the storm is passed. I got up, walked to the rocky point and sat on the same ledge. My tears were dry, my soul was at peace. A calm feeling of assurance came over me, doubt and questionings subdued. It was as though a great burden had been lifted. I sat in tranquil silence surveying the beautiful valley, thanking the Lord for the satisfaction and the reassuring answer to my prayers. Long I meditated here in peaceful quietude, apart and I felt nearer my Lord than ever at any time in my life .I felt I knew my way, now, physically and spiritually and knew where I was going.11 (Emphasis added) Spencer W. Kimballs account of what he experienced during the process of being called to be an Apostle was well told. It beautifully depicts the general feeling paradigm we have been examining together. First, his emotions were accessed by the fact of being called to the high calling as an Apostle. Then he was in shock and partial denial before he penetrated into his negative band; then he felt his weakness and unworthiness for such a call. He then went directly to the conflict within himself over whether his calling was really inspired by God or was simply of human doing for human reasons. The distress and conflict was expressed in crying, suffering, struggling and praying. The struggle went on as he took his walk to a nearby foothill and hiked up a mountain trail. At one point his distress became so intense that he entertained for a brief moment a suicidal thought, as he stood on a rock ledge, and momentarily realized that he could end his suffering by jumping off the ledge. The thought had little power over Spencer except to make him feel bad if it seemed he made any comparison between his experience and that of Jesus when Jesus was tempted by Satan to cast himself off the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. Eventually he arrived at resolution and was no longer in conflict. He received the knowledge that he was seeking. He was at peace with his being called as an Apostle and knew that his calling was inspired of the Lord. Almost exactly two years later he revisited this place that had become special to him and reminisced. He referred to this mountain as his sacred mountain.12 The major reason for reviewing the experience of Joseph Smith, Elizabeth KublerRoss and President Kimball was that they happened in current days and they demonstrate the feeling process. Joseph Smith and Spencer W. Kimball were seeking relief from conflict which required receiving greater knowledge and resolution. Elizabeth Kubler-Rosss experience happened by accident and was more to clear her of emotional pain not yet fully resolved. All three examples involved isolation; Joseph Smith and President Kimball involved being in stress; all three went through conflict; and Joseph and President Kimball received answers to their prayers. Elizabeths experience was much like Alma the Youngers experience in that the joy felt was felt in very strong terms.

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More on Spencer W. Kimball Spencer W. Kimball said that he had never intended to write a book.13 However, after many years as an Apostle, having seen the desperate need of many people to find a way back from sin and sexual sin in particular, he decided to write a book to meet that need. The book he wrote was called The Miracle of Forgiveness a book essentially about repentance and more particular about how people can apply the principles of repentance in their lives to become free of the consequences of unrepented sin.14 He started seriously writing in 1959having been an Apostle for sixteen years. The book was finally published in 1969. He gathered much of the material for the book along the way. The main reason it took so long to publish it was that he wrote the book in his spare time, so as to not take time from his ministry. His hard working ethic was legendary, so you know he didnt have much spare time. He wrote one other book Faith Precedes the Miracle that was published in 1972. It was fashioned from his many discourses and sermons with the able help from his youngest son Edward.15 Since this book is largely about the process of repentance, it should be important to review some of what President Kimball has to say on the subject. To do this I will let him talk for himself by sharing some quotes from his book: Our ills are usually of our own begetting. They must be corrected by ourselves. Man is the master of his destiny, be it good or bad. Man has the inherent capacity to heal himself physically. A doctor may cleanse a wound, sew it up, bandage it well, but the natural power of the body must do the healing. Likewise, a healing process in the spirit and mind must come from within from self-will.16 forgiveness is not a thing of days or months or even years but is a matter of intensity of feeling and transformation of self.17 (emphasis added) the person convinced of his sin and suffering godly sorrow for it in humility is reducedor rather in this case elevatedto tears. Thus he expresses anguish for his folly and for the grief it has brought to the innocent.the scriptural writers with their deep insight understood that there is healing balm in tears for the humble soul who is reaching toward god. Jeremiah wrote: Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night(Jer. 9: 1.) The Psalmist cried in his anguish: I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.18 (emphasis added) How much have you fasted? How much suffering have you endured? Is your guilt swept away?19 When a defiled man is born again, his habits are changed, his thoughts cleansed, his attitudes regenerated and elevated, his activities put in total order, and everything about him that was dirty, degenerate or reprobate is washed and made clean.20

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The effect of the cleansing is beautiful. These troubled souls have found peace. These soiled robes have been cleansed to spotlessness. These people formerly defiled, have been cleansed through their repentancetheir washing, their purging, their whiteningare made worthy for constant temple service and to be found before the throne of God associating with divine royalty.21 These statements are a few gleaned from The Miracle of Forgiveness. They are only representative and not a comprehensive list. I find that these concepts coincide with the experience I have had with deep feeling therapy and do not conflict in any way that I can see. In l978 President Kimball wrote an article on prayer that was included in the Ensign Magazine (March). It gave ample evidence of his great understanding of the principle of prayer but also made clear of his awareness of what it takes to make prayer effective in ones life. As for receiving answers to prayers, he said: And should we ever fail to get answers to our prayers, we must look into our lives for a reason. We have failed to do what we should, or we have done something we should not have done. We have dulled our hearing or impaired our eyesight. If you have lost that spirit of peace and acceptance, then every effort should be made to recapture it and retain it. Are you listening? Can you hear, and see, and feel? There seems to grow upon us a film of worldliness when we move away from the Lord. But when wepenetrate the covering and humble ourselves with naked soul and sincere supplication and cleansed life, our prayers are answered. We canlike [Peter] become partakers of the divine nature. (Emphasis added) (Page 17) In his article he made reference to the healing experience of Enos that has been earlier mentioned in this book. Notice the insight born, of personal experience that he shows: And the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart. Memory was both cruel and kind. The pictures his father had painted now stirred his soul. Then memory opened the doors to his ugly past. His soul revolted at the reliving of the baser things but yearned now for the better. A rebirth was in process. It was painful but rewarding. The spirit of repentance was taking hold. He was remorseful for his transgression, eager to bury the old man of sin, to resurrect the new man of faith, of godliness. He had now come to realize that no one can be saved in his sins, that no unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of God, that there must be a cleansing,

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that stains must be eliminated, new flesh over scars. He came to realize that there must be a purging, a new heart in a new man. He knew it was not a small thing to change hearts, and minds and tissues. (Pages 18-19) (Emphasis added) He also shared the following insight: Solitude is rich and profitable. When we pray alone with God, we shed all sham and pretense, all hypocrisy and arrogance. The Savior found his mountains and slipped away to pray. Paul, the great apostle, could not seem to get into the spirit of his new calling until he had found cleansing solitude down in Arabiafor purification; for repentance; for forgiveness, to break the seal of worldly covering, to shed his film, his skintight suit of worldliness. He went into solitude a worldly man and came out cleansed, prepared, regenerated. (Page 19) Summary We see in the preceding examples of healing and revelation, that truth is truth is truth no matter what the season or time. Miraculous examples of the Healers Art were experienced and recorded in the old and New Testament. They were experienced in the New World as well as the Old World, as recorded by people of the New World, and brought forth in modern times through the Book of Mormon. Not only were they experienced long ago, but also in recent times. And will continue into the future and for all time. And not only did they happen to prophets, but can happen to ordinary people who know and are willing to pay the price.

Notes
1. James 1:5. 2. Joseph Smith History 1:17-20. Triple Combination, Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Ut.,1981, pp.49-50. 3. Ibid. 1:1-75 pp.47-58. 4. The Pearl of Great Price. Moses1: 2. Triple Combination, Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Ut.,1981 p.1. 5. Bushman, Richard L., Ensign. April, The Character of Joseph Smith, Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Ut. 1977, pp. 11-13. 6. Joseph Smith History 1:28. Triple Combination, Published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Ut. 1981, p. 51. 7. Guralnik, Ed. New World Dictionary, 2nd College Edition Simon and Schuster, Inc. New York, NY. 1982, pp. 1355-1356. 8. 2 Nephi 4:17-35.

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9. Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth, On Death and Dying. Simon and Schuster, Inc. New York, NY. , 1971. 10. Lumsden, Marshall, Ed., Human Behavior. Vol. 6, The Miracle of Kubler-Ross, by Ann Nietzke, September 1977, pp. 18-27. 11. Kimball, Edward L. and Andrew E. Jr., Spencer W. Kimball. Call to the Apostleship, Bookcraft, Inc., Salt Lake City, Ut. 1977. pp.188-195. 12. Ibid. pp. 221-222. 13. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness. Bookcraft, Inc. Salt Lake City, Ut. 1969 preface x. 14. Ibid. 15. Kimball, Spencer W. and Kimball, Edward ed., Faith Precedes the Miracle, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, Ut. 1977. 16. Op. Cit..p. 53. 17. Ibid., p. 156. 18. Ibid., p. 160. 19. Ibid., p.161. 20. Ibid., p. 352. 21. Ibid., p. 353.

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Chapter 9
All Truth Shall Come Together
While on my Quest for the Healers Art, I have discussed many things that have contributed to my understanding of the power to heal. There have been wonderful contributions from so-called secular sources and there have been equally impressive contributions from spiritual or religious sources. In the end, I believe we will find that they have all come from the same source, the fountain of all truthour heavenly Father. I would now like to continue the search for true healing principles by examining in more detail the contributions of secular truth and spiritual truth as they have impacted my understanding of the healing process, as they were unfolded to me and to which I now bear my witness. In this chapter, there will be a number of principles or concepts examined. There is no particular order to their introduction. Some things we will touch on are as follows: One, defenses; two, understanding and dealing with anger; three, the healing paradigm in scripture; four, addictions, compulsions, and loss of agency; five, understanding dreams and how they can benefit man; six, penetrating the veil, a real possibility; seven, Satan bound for a thousand years, a millennial reality; eight, understanding suicide and being able to prevent it; nine, successfully curing the incurable; and ten, understanding the Lords plan for male and female. I. Defenses In general, defenses are good and usually necessary in a world where threat of war is the norm and criminality runs rampant: however, the defenses I intend to explore now are those called psychological or psychic defenses and, as you will see are another thing entirely. In order to understand the nature of healing, we need to understand something of psychological defenses. There seems to be some difference of opinion about the value of psychic defenses, which we will explore, but for now we need to understand some other things. Mans senses are essential to his survival. The more functional the senses are, the more likely man is to survive. Mans sensory organs receive and send, for processing, a large range of data from very pleasant to very unpleasant. The sensory data that is pleasant and feels good is easy to accept; however, that is not the case with the data that are unpleasant. Yet, it is the unpleasant data that is most important for survival. This presents us with a dilemma, because not all things that feel good are good for us and not all things that feel bad are bad for us. This brings up another facet of this discussion and that is the agency of manhis ability to chooseand the intelligence and wisdom to choose wisely. Part of the purpose of mortal life is to learn the difference between what is really good for us and

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what only feels good, but is inherently damaging. This presents us with another dilemma. Because of our ability to choose, it really makes the test of mortality more meaningful, but at the same time makes mortality more challenging. We cannot rely on instinct alone to guide us. Beside the good things passed on to us by our parents, there are also some bad things passed on. This is something else that makes the mortality test more challenging. Habit can also play a part. Though habit is designed to be our friend, it can make it more difficult in the case of mal-adaptive behaviors, thoughts, attitudes, or behaviors we pick up along the way that become entrenched. Now we have some idea of the need to make good choices and also some of the hazards that may get in the way of making good choices. So, we are ready to get back to discussing, in more detail, psychic defenses. Noyes and Kolb said the following about psychic defenses, The personality [of people] develop defenses designed to manage anxiety, aggressive impulses, hostilities, resentments and frustrations. All of us make continual use of defense mechanisms. In themselves they are not necessarily pathological. Life would be unbearable without resort to rationalization and similar psychic protections. Neither is it always the goal of therapy to eliminate them. Since at times they may promote the individuals ability to live in peace with himself, it may, infact, be a therapeutic objective to strengthen them.1 At this point it may be interesting to list a few psychic defenses for examples: such as compensation, rationalization, projection, denial, dissociation, fixation, regression, and sublimation.2 Compensation is to enhance a strength to make up for a perceived deficiency. Rationalization means to give a good reason in place of the real reason for a behavior, belief or attitude and believe it to be true. Projection is to severely criticize in other persons the very same faults which are the weak points of their own character, utterly failing to recognize the fact that they themselves possess the despised traits and motives.3 Denial is an intrapsychic defense mechanism by means of which consciously intolerable thoughts, wishes, facts, and deeds are disowned by an unconscious denial of their existence.4 Fixation sometimes occurs, due to trauma or neglect. This is where "certain aspects of the personality may be arrested in their maturational process, with the result that full harmonious development never occurs." "The arrest is not in the intellectual but in the emotional, dispositional aspect of personality maturation."5 Regression. This is where the personality may suffer loss of some of the development already attained and revert to a lower level of integration, adjustment, and expression.6 Sublimation is the mechanism whereby energy generated from unmet needs is channeled to socially useful goals. The preceding psychic defenses all have the same thing in common. They protect a persons psyche from being overly stressed. This is done by keeping the real motivations for their use out of the conscious awareness of the individual.

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Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud was one of the early pioneers in the modern mental health field. He studied and wrote much about the important part that repression plays in the creation of mental illness, and about the various psychic defenses that are used by men to keep repressed hurts out of conscious awareness. He recognized the need to get past mental blocks and to access the unconscious of individuals in order for them to heal from childhood traumas and he developed techniques for accomplishing that. He called his method Psychoanalysis. As a result of his treatments patients would gain insights into unconscious influences in their lives. Dr. Freud believed that some psychic defenses were bad and needed to be removed while other defenses were good and should be strengthened. One such gooddefense was sublimationthe channeling of needs or drives into more acceptable outlets. Freuds work stands out easily as the most innovative and important thinking in modern times and has contributed much to our understanding of mental and emotional illness. Much of modern psychotherapy is based on his work and ideas. Arthur Janov In more recent years, Arthur Janov has done work along similar lines as Freud. Janovs work seems to start where Freud left off and seems to be very important in our understanding of how to successfully treat mental and emotional illness. One of the chief differences between Freud and Janovs work is that Freud tended to strive for an intellectual understanding or awareness (insight) of repressed material, by remembering, while central to Janovs work is feeling or experiencing repressed hurts (reliving) as the primary method of releasing repressed pain. I think that Janov would say that if you dont have a therapy that can remove pain you really dont have a healing therapy. It seems from the reports of Janovs successes that the feeling process is an important key for curing mental illnesses. Janov has stated psychic defenses of any kind are not good because they block feeling and thus block complete cure. He said, any defense is neurotic and that there is no such thing as healthy defenses.7 What the Gospel says about Defenses A major goal of the gospel is to promote the spiritual, social, mental and physical well being of man. As a way to accomplish this, people are encouraged to forsake all wrong doing and to revamp ones life along the lines of goodness and righteousness i.e., healthy living. The truth of righteous and healthy living, as revealed in scripture, comes from time tested human experiences and forms the basis of gospel teaching. To benefit from true principles man is encouraged to trust God and his word (scriptures) be teachable (humble) and obedient in living according to His commandments (teachings). Then comes the promised resulthappiness and joy in this world and in the next.

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Being humble means to be nondefensive, trusting and submissive to Gods will. Men are encouraged to be humble and learn truth and then repent of all past and current wrong doing and live according to truth in the future. Concerning defenses, the best treatise on this in scripture is found in Ephesians 6: 11-18: 11. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 15. And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked 17. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: 18. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; (emphases added) From this, according to Apostle Paul, the suggested defenses are truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the word of God. The word of God is also called the sword of the spirit. In Hebrews 4:12, it further defines the word of God by saying:
For

the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, it is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." This brings to mind an article I once read in a college textbook. It was written by Raymond Corsini and was about a type of group therapy he was doing when he was a prison psychologist. He called the therapy Immediate Therapy. The point of the therapy was to face the person that was on the hot seat for the session at hand with a truth that the person was not able to recognizea truth that generally played a part in the inmates problems. He described one case that I remember of a black man who was full of anger towards white men because of their prejudice. He had a weeks notice before his session. This was done to let the person on the hot seat get a little anxious before the session. Then, during the session the group members would engage in two-way conversation with the designated recipient of the therapy. During the session the black man raged on about how rotten whites were against Negroes and how prejudiced they were. Then the group members engaged in what was called behind the back technique. This process required the black man to stand in a corner facing

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the wall. They all pretended that he was out of the room, as did he, while the rest of the group members discussed what they thought of the man. In this case, they centered on the observation that none of them had ever seen a person who was more prejudiced than was the black man. This feed back hit the man with great force. He had always seen himself as the victim of prejudice and as such never recognized his own culpability in that regard. In a state of shock, he stormed out of the therapy room and was left to himself to process his feelings for the next week When he returned the next week he was a changed man. He became a model prisoner and I understand that in a short time he was released from prison.98 This demonstrates that people often fool themselves and fail to see themselves or their behaviors in a negative light. It also demonstrates the power of truth to penetrate ones defenses and bring about healthy changes, as mentioned in the previous scripture. It seems that scripture stands more on the side of Janov on this one and is against anything that might block feelings of any kind, presumably because of the importance of retaining our feeling and sensing capabilities to the maximum. 2. Understanding and Dealing with Anger One day, a number of years ago, I was reading in my Bible and came upon the following passage, Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:8 I was so excited by that passage that I stopped reading and just thought about it. I said to my self, Just think, Apostle Paul, speaking for the Lord, said that it is alright to have our own feelings, including anger, just do not sin and take care of the problem quickly. For quite awhile, Im not sure how long, I was pleasantly content with that thought. Until one day I happened to be reading in a book about Joseph Smiths translation of the Bible. Joseph said that the correct translation of that passage was, Can ye be angry and not sin? Let not the sun go down upon your wrath9 Reading further, I read the 31st verse of Ephesians 4 which said, Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:10 Other passages conflicted with Ephesians 4:26. For instance, in Genesis 49:7 said, Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath; for it was cruel. While Jacob gave blessings to his children before he died, he chastised Simeon and Levi for their anger and wrath. Again King David counsels in Psalms 37:8, Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in anywise to do evil. Solomon said in Proverbs 16:32, He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Again he said, that anger resteth in the bosom of fools.(Eccles. 7:9) Paul further counseled the Colossians to put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications out of your mouth.(3:8) It seems that Joseph Smiths rendering of that passage put it more in line with the rest of the scriptures.

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Anger will ever be with us, but we must be careful with itas the corrected passage of Paul would indicate, Can we be angry and not sin? I remember learning somewhere along the way that anger is a secondary emotion usually preceded by another primary feeling such as hurt, threat, or loss. It is a reaction to perceived threat. It serves to muster up the adrenaline necessary to escape the threat, or to fend off and vanquish a potential enemy. Once it was very useful, but now, if out of control, or chronic, can harm its host as well as his enemies. Anger, out of control, is destructive at its worst and at its best is deceptive. It can result in confusing some issues that would be better served by truth. We have all at some time been frightened by something and reacted with anger. For example, when one of your children didnt come home from an activity at the expected time and as the time extended you got more and more worried and fearful that something bad had happened. When they finally came home didnt you sometime react with anger when you were really worried and then relieved when you found that they were safe? I remember once going to our local swimming pool to pick up my fifteen-year old daughter who had been swimming. On the way, I predicted that she would keep me waiting. My reasoning was that she would lose track of time because of visiting with boys in the pool. When I arrived at the pool, sure enough she was not waiting for me. I went into the building to get her and there she was in the pool surrounded by fellows. I became so angry that I advised her that Id be waiting in the car. After she dressed and joined me in the car, I started verbally chewing her out. I continued all the way home, a few blocks away, and into the house. I kept going while she cowered in a chair in the living room. In mid-sentence I recognized that she had done nothing wrong. It was natural for a young lady to be interested in boys. And I certainly could not fault the boys for being interested in such a beautiful, vivacious girl. I realized that I was afraid of the fact that my little girl was growing up. She would soon be dating and before long she would be getting married and leave our home. Without changing pace or softening the tone, I told her that I was the one that had the problemI was afraid. She had done nothing wrong. Her reply was simple, Then why are you yelling at me! There are many times one might cover a real primary feeling with a secondary one and confuse the issue. I believe now, more than ever before, that God is into wanting us to be feeling people. Even to the extent of not wanting us to use substitute or secondary feelings in placed of our real, true feelings. In my work with hurting people, it is not unusual to see a lot of anger. Anger is a common response to hurt, threat, or loss. It is also commonly used to control. Here again control is a device to protect one from hurt or threat. Most people can recognize that an angry person can be a dangerous person. One does not know what to expect of them. I have found that in feeling work, if I can teach a client to make it second nature to work out feelings on the floorwe call it floor workthere is absolutely no danger of them harming either themselves or anyone else. Also, I have never seen anyone doing floor work get up off the floor and do any harm even in the middle of rage. And always the anger or rage is a cover for loss, threat, or hurt.

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I encourage clients to cut right through the rage to the underlying feeling, but whether or not they do, the result is the same. After the rage is released they eventually get to the hurt, threat, or loss and when they work through that they always arrive at resolution, peace and understanding. Chronic anger or irritation in a person is a sure sign of the person being in a lot of pain and needing some cleansing floor work. At the point of strong feeling, access to pain is readily achieved, but unless one is prepared for it in advance the problem would be to get them to listen to reason. 3. The Healing Paradigm in Scripture The main purpose of my search to find the Healers Art, was to gain an understanding of the best and most effective way of helping people obtain relief from the emotional and psychological damages suffered in mortality. Its not as though I started out with a complete awareness that this would be my goal; it was something that came in stages. With each step the goal became clearer. It started with me just wanting to be educated. Then it went to wanting to do something worthwhile. From there it evolved to doing something worthwhile with people. That took me to the Graduate School of Social Work to become skilled at marriage counseling. Then I learned that good marriages are made up of healthy people and healthy people are made one by one. As you should have already read, it finally came down to seeking the most effective way to heal individuals the way Jesus would. He was and is the master healer and he taught his way from the beginning of time to others, so they also could become healers of men. As you have already read, I have used both secular and spiritual sources in my search for truth, with truth being the common denominator, as I sought understanding of His waythe Healers Art. As you might remember, I determined to seek knowledge, with the gospel key as my guide. After many years of experience and testing I am grateful for making that decision. Even though the so-called wise of the world might scoff and make light of that fact, I still stand by it. There are those in both the secular and spiritual world that are learned and yet might still find it difficult to see beyond their view (paradigm) of their particular world. Why use the Gospel Key? Gospel truths or principles are eternal. In a world of constant change, ones footing must be on solid ground. A gospel truth in one age is the same as in any other age. It is unchangeable. The truths of men may seem brilliant and make sense at a given time, but if not founded on eternal truth, may crumble to dust in another time. Because of this, men have been warned from time to time, lest they become trapped in their own pride. In the time of Isaiah, God gave warning through him to man, saying:

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For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord. 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.11 The Lord, in effect, said that his ways and thoughts are higher than mans. He also reaffirms that His words are truth and will do what He says they will. Apostle Paul, again reaffirmed this truth in the primitive church, to the Corinthians when he said: .the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.12 Again, nearly six hundred years before Pauls statement, Nephi acknowledged that man should put his trust in God before trusting in man.13 And finally, in our day God has reaffirmed, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, that trust should be put in God rather than maneven wise men.14 Further, he promised to those who serve Him in righteousness and truth to the end, He will reveal all mysteries and even the wonders of eternity and they would prevail against the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent.15 Understanding the meaning of Dialectic To begin with, I think it would be helpful to understand a word that will describe the healing paradigmthe word is dialectic. The first time I heard the word used was in connection with the books written by Arthur Janov. The word was used many times to describe the healing dynamic that is central to the healing in his therapy. Janov said, Primal Therapy is essentially a dialectical process in which one matures as he feels his childish needs, in which a person becomes warm, when he feels his coldness, in which one becomes strong through feeling weak,. . .16 The Websters New World Dictionary says that dialectic is based on the principle that an idea or event (thesis) generates its opposite (antithesis) leading to a reconciliation of opposites (synthesis).17 It can best be understood by seeing examples of what dialectic is. For instance, whatever negative symptom is manifest, or whatever negative feeling predominates at a given time, if felt to its fullest will revert to its opposite, and will move on to a peaceful synthesis or resolution. For example, if a person is feeling weak and without power, if that person can be helped to feel and explore fully that feeling, his system will go through an internal process from which he will emerge feeling strengthened. As one experiences this dynamic, he will come to know the process as a way to
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accomplish emotional healing. He will recognize that by feeling his emotional pain it will be eliminated; feeling ones hopelessness will bring about hope; feeling ones craziness will bring about sanity. The list seems to be inexhaustible. One must learn how to give up control in order to gain control. It seems that this dialect principle is what is behind the well-known Alcoholic Anonymous catch phrase Let go and let God. As you can see, it is a tricky concept. By using mans natural and logical reasoning alone, he would be lost. What person in his right mind would choose to feel pain, hopelessness, weakness or being out of control on his own? Rather, one is most likely to do almost any thing to avoid such a feeling. And yet, as you will see that is exactly what is necessary to do. A healer of minds needs to gain enough rapport and trust to help a hurting person feel more rather than less in order to help him. If left to his own reasoning, a person is likely to continue trying to solve health problems in the way he has always done, especially if it seems logical to him. To paraphrase something I once learned in a seminar on Neurolinguistic Programming If you continue to do what you have always done, you will continue to get the results you have always gotten. Therefore, it is necessary to help others change their usual thinking to principles that may at first seem either foolish or even dangerous, but in reality are true and healing. That is why it is important to gain credibility and trust. I believe that one should generally go into a healing journey with another by that persons informed consent. Arthur Janov is certainly not the inventor of this principle and is not the first one to discover the operation of the dialectic principle. But he did bring the principle to my attention and has made the term and its principle more known in modern times to the readers of his books and those who have engaged in his therapy. Certainly, professionals, who understand and are honest, will acknowledge his considerable contribution to the development of a powerful and healing therapy. Other examples of the Dialectic Principle On the occasion that Jesus told his disciples of his coming death and subsequent resurrection and also of being rejected by the elders and chief priests, he made the following statement: Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.18 Similarly, Jesus said, But I say unto you, love thy enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; this is a variation on the same theme.19 The Old Testament contains ample evidence that the older prophets understood this healing principle. In Ecclesiastes, written by one calling himself the Son of David, wrote The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.20 And again, Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.21 In Psalms 126:5 it is written, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. In the New Testament, it is enough to mention two scriptures. Apostle Paul, as already quoted, said, For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation22

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Apostle James made one of the best statements concerning this principle when he counseled, "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.23 My Experience with the Dialectic Principle After having used Deep Feeling Therapy for awhile, I came across a scripture, while reading the Book of Mormon. It was in the Book of Ether chapter 12 verse 27. I had read the passage many times before and recognized it as a much loved and much quoted scripture by LDS people. It read as follows: And if men come unto me I will show them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. This time the scripture had an impact on me greater than at any other time. It seemed to have a richness of meaning beyond what I could have imagined before engaging in the deep feeling therapy. As I read it again and again and pondered its meaning, I noticed that Ether wrote the words of Christ when Christ said he would show men that came to him, their weakness. He said he gave men weakness that they might be humble. I reasoned that it was important to Christ that men experience their weaknesses. In so doing, it would help them become humble or open to the spirit and teachable and their defenses would more easily be penetrated. He further said that if men were to take down their defenses and have faith and trust in him, then he would make the weak things become strong in them. Further analysis focused on what Christs primary mission wasthe healing of men in all ways. It was important that man have knowledge of Christs mission and methodologyhis gospeland act on it. In this instance he wanted man to have the courage to get in touch with their weaknesses and experience them and this would result in a wonderful healing. This seemed to be the case, because in verse thirtyseven Ether quoted Christ as saying And because thou hast seen thy weakness, thou shalt be made strong He also said it would work with all men. I found that this is the principle underlying deep feeling therapy. I will share some experiences Ive had that illustrate this principle. An Ugly, Young Lady I had some visits with a young lady around eighteen or nineteen years of age. She was a tall (over six feet), statuesque, blond who was quite attractive. She was married and had no children as yet. She said that for many years she had been bothered with the obsession that she was ugly. Even at her wedding, when she descended the stairs before exchanging her vows with the groom, she thought that every one in the room could see how ugly she was. I first took some time to explain briefly the main concepts behind feeling therapy. Then she made an appointment for a session later on.
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Later, she came for an appointment. I asked how she was feeling that day and she responded with I feel very ugly today. To this I asked if she would like some help in getting in touch with that feeling. She nodded her agreement and I had her get comfortable in a recliner chair and asked her to close her eyes and get in touch with that feeling. In a few minutes she was into the feeling. By now I had learned to accept the feeling she presented for work and to trust the process. I also learned to trust the processor and stood ready to help if some barriersseemed to be resistant to accessing. I noticed that the usual tears and hurt she was processing, moved along beautifully and with little help. When she was through and we were in the revealing stage, she remarked with wonder at how clean and beautiful she felt. She was amazed at the impact those early experiences had on her today. She told me that when she was a young girl, her brother and some of his friends wanted her to let them play with her body. She wanted to be accepted by them so much that she let them. It happened on a number of occasions and she started to feel dirty. Eventually, she felt ugly inside and thought people could see her ugliness. This feeling of ugliness inside her, generalized to outside as well. Eventually, mercifully, her memory faded and she forgot those experiences had ever happenedthough she was stuck with the symptoms of those experiences. She revealed that one of the things that carried over to the present day was that on occasion she would sleep with friends of her husband at his request. The next week when she came for a session she said that she still felt clean and beautiful. And she had decided that she was not going to entertain her husbands buddies in bed anymore. As time went on, I learned that her husband refused to accept her decision to stop servicing his friends, so she decided to divorce himand rightly so. She is now married to a nice fellow and she is planning to become a psychotherapist herself one day. A Young Lady with Anorexia Once, while visiting clients in a small central Utah town, I met with a young lady who was from California, visiting her parents for a few weeks. Her observable symptom was that she was anorexic. She was a very pretty, blond, young lady who looked like a beanpole. Her presenting complaint was that she was not feeling emotionally well and had come home to visit her parents to get away from the stresses in her life. After a visit and discussion about general principles of health and healing, in the first session, another appointment was made. At the beginning of the next meeting, I asked her about her week and how she was doing this day. She said she had an oppressive, heavy feeling in her chest. I asked if she wanted to deal with that feeling and she said, Yes! I let her sit where she was and had her close her eyes, so she could better focus on the feelingsoon she was into the feeling. She was so quiet it was hard to tell where she was. After awhile, I noticed a tear form under her closed eyelids and gently run down her cheeksthen I knew she was processing. I felt I should do nothing that

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might interfere with her processing. In forty-five minutes to an hour, when she was finished, she told me that when she was about five years old she was put in charge of a younger brother and was told to look after him. The little brother wandered over to the canal and fell in. She was not able to pull him out and he was drowned. Now, she was able to understand the situation from the perspective of an adult instead of that of a five-year-old child. The pain that drove her anorexia was now goneforever. As she thought about this miracle, she realized also that the tight feeling was gone. A short time later the lady returned to her husband and home in California. An Interesting Realization After finishing this piece on the Healing Paradigm, I realized that I had personally gone through what could be called the Faith Paradigm. The Faith Paradigm is where to have faith in a principle one must first have some beginning or rudimentary knowledge of that principle. Then, as that beginning or incomplete knowledge (I used to call it baby knowledge) is acted upon again and again and the hoped for results happens again and again, one can become more and more confident that the principle is indeed true. By this time there is no doubtthe knowledge is sure. Then faith in the principle becomes dormant because the person knows for sure the principle is truenothing doubting. I started with rudimentary knowledge of the Healing Paradigm and then acted upon that knowledge. I remember how, at first, I prayed often for a good outcome and was relieved each time a good outcome happened. I soon found that it happened each and every time and when I realized this I knew the principle was true and had no doubtI had certain knowledge. 4. Addictions, Compulsions and Loss of Agency It is important to remember that earlier in this book we discussed the Grand Council in heaven. In that council Gods plan for our eternal exaltation was presented. Lucifer, the son of the morning, presented his plan and it was not accepted. Gods plan took into consideration the fundamental need to include choice. His children enjoyed freedom of choice as spirits and it was even more necessary to have as mortals. There is something fundamental in a human being that cries out for being free to choose for themselves what they will do. Satans plan, on the other hand, required that freedom of choice be eliminated or suspended indefinitely, but he promised that not one soul would be lost as a result. When Lucifers plan was rejected he could have remained in Gods good graces if he had only said Not my will but Thine be done. But Lucifer was angered and he rebelled and took with him many of Gods children that thought, as he did, of the end results while glossing over the means to get there. If one knows what to look for and pays close attention, he or she will notice that the war started in heaven is being waged today and has been since the beginning of time. Some of the signs to look for in the battles being waged are as follows:

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l. Good verses evil. 2. Right verses wrong. 3. Freedom verses slavery. 4. Creativeness and building verses destroying. You will notice that Gods battle plan is based on the idea that the end does not justify the means. Righteous means must be used to achieve righteous ends. Those in Satans service say that their righteous goals justify using any means of achieving them. Satan knows his adversary very well. He knows that mortal man responds favorably to righteousness, freedom, creating and they fundamentally wish to do good. So he plays to those qualities in man. If he can make a person believe that what he is doing is good, that will blind his view of many things he does that are bad to achieve that good goal. Down through history, much that was done in the name of religion was done by extremely unrighteous means. People were burned at the stake because they took issue with some aspects of the predominant religion. Children and others were sacrificed to placate the Gods in many ancient cultures In recent history wars were fought on a grand scale between differing political ideologies. Communism had the high ideal to elevate the whole society by placing choice in the hands of the few and eliminating it from the many. Hitler promised to elevate the German race, by eliminating those considered a drag on societythe handicapped, crippled and other such people. Currently much of Islamic society is under control of governments that believe in restricting the right of their people to chose. Many Islamic governments can execute those of other religions who proselyte in their countries. The penalty for adultery in many Islamic countries is death. In the name of religion many people blow themselves up along with innocent people in the belief that Allah (God) will be pleased. The world is in turmoil and wars abound and hate rules the minds of many that believe they have been wronged. Satan has a hold on the minds of many and gets them in his service while they mistakenly believe they are engaged in a righteous cause. With this background, I would now like to take a look at Satans cunning plan to eliminate the agency of man, man by man. We have seen how he brings large groups of people to his cause by using deception and creating false beliefs. He also has plans to eliminate potential enemies by incapacitating them. He has found that if people cannot function properly they cannot do him much harm. This brings us to the issue of how Satan eliminates his competition. I have had many clients tell me that they know how Satan works. They say that if he can make them psychotic, neurotic, or otherwise emotionally incapacitated he doesn't have to worry about them doing him any harm. They can also do little for Gods team, as they lose their effectiveness and productivity. The way he works is to make people afraid of feeling. Eventually they become less and less feeling until it is almost as if they have lost completely the ability to feel. The main problem for the unfeeling person is that they lose their ability to empathize with others. They lose that precious gift and do not even realize it until its gone. Some dont even realize it then. There is a part of them that wants to feel so much that they will do almost anything that will stir up some emotion or feeling. By this time the only

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thing that will stir up some feeling is that which is new and very exciting or that which threatens their security or freedom such as breaking the law, robbing banks, illicit sex, rape or murder. You can see that there are many levels of feeling deprivation that only brings grief and failure, but would not rise to the level of criminal behavior. Let us think for a moment of a person that has lost his ability to feel love for his spouse, because life with her has become routine. Once he could feel the excitement of new love, but now its gone and he doesnt know why, but he just doesnt feel the same toward her as he once did. Then along comes a new face with renewed, exciting feelings (like the ones he used to have when his wife was his girl friend) and it feels so good. He may try to ignore it for awhile, but the feeling is so wonderful and he feels so little around his faithful, but now ordinary wife. As he automatically compares, he realizes that he is in love with the new lady in his life. What he doesnt know is that if he foolishly changed wives the new one would soon feel like the previous one after the newness wears off and he can no longer feel his love for her. In the meantime he has wreaked havoc in many lives because of his inability to feel any thing that doesnt have a powerful enough kick to break through his numbed feelings. The Anatomy of an Addiction All addictions are built on a foundation of pain. The walls and roof of the structure consist of pain relievers that are learned or found by accident and by trial and error. The furnishings and bars on the doors and windows are made firm and unyielding by the fact that pain relievers truly do relieve pain, but do not eliminate it or the underlying cause of the pain. It has been recognized that the most effective painkillers create the most difficult addictions to controlsuch as heroin. This structure becomes the jail that houses the person in pain, thus severely limiting or eliminating his agency. This is essentially the anatomy of all addictions and compulsions. Lets look at an example of a person addicted to alcohol. He might be called by some a drunk, and by others an alcoholic. It really doesnt matter because both words mean the same thing. A person so labeled got his title essentially by drinking too much alcohol and being unable to leave it alone. Many people drink and have drunk alcohol without becoming out of control drinkers. When a person drinks alcohol and then feels especially good, while the alcohol suppresses pain, sometimes pain the person didnt know they had, and then the pain reappears begging for more relief, that person is an alcoholic in the making. A person becomes an alcoholic when he or she loses the ability to choose not to drink. It becomes a disease when the body starts to break down because of the negative effects of alcohol. No one is born an alcoholic except newborn infants of an alcoholic mother who refuses to stop drinking during the gestation of the baby. But that is another story. Many professionals call alcoholism a disease that some are afflicted with and others are not. This is due to the fact that not all people are equally addicted to alcohol.

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However, all people that have similar pain that is being suppressed will become similarly addicted if they all drink alcohol. If the pain is not eliminated the best an alcoholic can hope for is temporary relief from the pain and what ever benefits that come from controlling the intake of alcoholwhich can be great especially if started before serious physical damage occurs. The list of addictions or compulsions is infinite. Anything one thinks, believes or does can become addictive if the conditions for-mentioned are present. If the thing done relieves chronic pain, but does not resolve the underlying problem or relieve the pain associated with the underlying problem. Healthy and necessary functions such as sleeping, eating, playing and having sexual expression can become compulsive or addictive if the primary purpose becomes more to relieve pain than to fulfill its natural purpose. One way to tell whether a function is used appropriately is if it is being over done or underdone. One can over eat or under eat in the service of dealing with emotional pain. The same is true of sleeping, recreating or engaging in functions of procreating. There are nervous habits such as thumb sucking, biting fingernails, pulling ones hair and picking ones nose, if they are done to excess for the purpose of relieving pain in the form of anxiety or chronic stress. Any criminal acts such as stealing, lying, or taking another persons life is usually done as a result of mindbending, but unresolved hurt or pain experienced in the past. Once a perpetrator links a crime with pain relief, he or she can become a chronic perpetrator. That is how serial killers are created. Once one feels the adrenaline rush that comes from murder, the person can grow to compulsively seek to repeat the act that brought the original rush or relief of pain. Once again, some compulsions or addictions can be controlled, but unless the underlying pain is released, no true cure is possible. True cure is only possible when the pain, that underlies the compulsive or addictive behavior, is eliminated for good. 5. Understanding Suicide and its Prevention Suicide, the taking of ones own life, has been around since the beginning of mans mortal existence. There are many reasons a person may chose to end his or her life. Usually it is done to escape some dreaded consequence, actual or anticipated pain, or experience the person thinks will be intolerable. Some commit suicide to avoid shame or disgrace, or to spare loved ones the expense of a lingering illness. The reasons are many, but regardless the reason, it is considered a sin to take ones own life. I call suicide, along with divorce and insanity the big escapes. The one successful suicide I was personally acquainted with happened when I was associated with the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic at the LDS Hospital. I had little experience in counseling and no experience with suicide at the time. My client was a lady over forty that was married with several children. She was going through a lot of emotional stress. She mentioned that she and her husband had not been intimate for quite awhile. He told her that intimacy without satisfaction was actually painful to him. Rather than risk this she decided to not start something they could not finish.

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She told me of having a nice lady visit with her to teach her nutrition and give her support in time of need. She said the lady seemed nice, but brought Satan into her home when she came. On one visit she made to the clinic, she told me in a quite off-handed way that she had a gun at home that she kept under the pillow and she knew what to do with it. After the session ended I staffed the case with my supervisor Grant Hyer. He seemed to put his finger right on the problem. He said that because of her stress and deprivation of intimacy with her husband, he thought that when a caring, supportive lady came to her, she naturally felt some positive feelings for the lady. She interpreted these feelings as being attracted to her in an intimate way and could not accept herself having such feelings for another woman. She put the blame on Satan having been brought into her house by the woman. Because she was an active member of her church, I didnt worry a lot about suicide. And since I believed I understood her problem and could easily help her understand, I eagerly awaited her next visitthen I could really help her. A short time later, before her next visit, I received the word that the lady had gone into a nearby field and killed herself with a gun. I was shattered by the knowledge of her senseless act. As I gained more understanding, I realized that because she was a good woman she saw her husband and children affected by her distress and decided to spare them further harm by taking herself out of their lives. When people are under undue stress they do not always think with healthy logic or clarity. We also find that a large percentage of people that commit suicide do not really want to die, they just want to make the pain go away. In reading the many books of Arthur Janov, he has helped my understanding of the various levels in which pain is stored. He says that level three pains are stored and processed in the Frontal Cerebral Cortex and are related to thought processes. These pains are the easiest accessed and are also the least painful to deal with. The second level pains are stored and processed in the Mid-brain and Limbic System and are more related to feelings and emotion. The most painful sensations, the level one pains, are stored in the brain stem and are related to the Autonomic nervous system. He postulates that there is a gating system that tends to keep order in the system. This gating system when not disabled by drugs (primarily LSD) or overwhelmed by excessive emotional trauma, will allow pain to be released in an orderly fashion with the least potent pains accessed first and released. Then the next level pains to be released and removed from the system. And then finally, the most potent pains will them present themselves for processing or feeling. This level of pain, first level, is very painful because it was generated at a time when the person was in the least defended time of life and therefore the most fragile time of life. It is interesting to note that if a person is feeling or processing pain as it is presented in an open, steady and trustful way the journey of self discovery and healing is safe and mind expanding. The whole person is healed in mind, emotion and body at the same time. If, on the other hand, the person being healed is pushed into pains that he or she is not ready for, or overwhelmed by too much pain at one time, a disaster is in the making.

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Dr. Janov said that LSD is the most dangerous drug that can be taken. It works on the repression centers of the brain and has a tendency to release pain in a disorderly fashion and too fast to be healthily processed. Steadily progressing from least painful to most is healing, while experiencing deep, profound pain with out the progressive experience is dangerous and can result in insanity or suicide. If we could all experience the intensity of pain that another could get by going directly to level one without making stops on the way, we would understand a person taking their own life. Can you remember the story of the man I mentioned earlier, that was divorced and tried to get ride of all of his pain relievers at once and wound up taking his own life just before he reached the point of a healing breakthrough? What a tragedy and waste of a human life. It might be interesting to know that having an occasional thought of suicide at sometime in ones life is not really very unusual. As a boy I occasionally had thoughts along that line. But I always noticed a day or so later those thoughts would be replaced with thoughts of happiness and joy of living. I remember that once I made a pact with myself that I would never kill myself when blue or depressed because I knew that soon Id be feeling greatand then Id be sorry. Having suicidal temptations can come at times of personal crisis or just before a marvelous revelation is had. Just remember the temptation of Jesus by Satan to caste himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. Or, the experience of Spencer W. Kimball when he noted, on his walk up his Sacred Mountain when he noted that to get out of his suffering all he had to do was to jump off the cliffbut he did not. We must always follow their example by not giving in to temptation. I have, during my career, visited with people in severe emotional pain who worked through their crises by allowing themselves to be helped to process their pain to the end. The pain was released and resolved and in its place came renewed strength and confidence to deal with and resolve the crisis. The best help a therapist can give is through the trust the client has in him or her and through their knowledge of the terrain and their helpful guidance and support to eliminate the underlying pain. With that gone there is nothing to drive the suicidal intention. I have seen that happen many times. 6. Curing the "Incurable I have been in the mental health field in one capacity or another since 1957. I first started as a Psychiatric Nursing Assistant in a V.A. Hospital. At that time hydrotherapy and insulin shock therapy was recent history. Psychotropic drug therapy was in its infancy and lobotomies were soon to begin their decline. I was acquainted with several men who had been lobotomized. Lobotomies were performed by surgically scraping inside the skull, across the forehead, severing some nerves to the brain. The results of this procedure rendered a formerly out of control patient more compliant. I visited and played cards often with such a man and found him to be quite pleasant and normal appearing. I was told that the only problem the nursing staff knew of was that he was rendered amoralthat is bereft of moral conscience.

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I was aware of an attempt by a psychiatrist, Doctor Peter Lindstrom in San Francisco to perform lobotomies with sound waves. This refinement was called Sonotomy. It was said that this procedure was a more precise way of doing lobotomies. Doctor Lindstrom was also known as the husband of Ingrid Bergman, a well-known and popular movie star at the time. Sonotomies must have died with Dr. Lindstrom, as I am not aware of them surviving the test of time. Electro-shock therapy was in vogue at the time and on the upswing. It was found to be an effective way to treat a person with severe depression. Of all the attempts to control the symptoms of mental illness just mentioned only drug therapy and ECT (Electro-convulsive) therapy have survived to the present day. ECT therapy has added some refinements such as administering muscle relaxants to reduce the incidents of broken bones that sometimes happened when a patient was put into a convulsion. In my laymans terms, since I am not a medical doctor, I think that what ECT does in a dramatic way, is to drive any feelings trying to surface back into repression and thus achieve some reduction of symptoms. I believe that the day will come, however, when this practice will be seen as a barbaric practice from an earlier unenlightened age. Thank goodness the spirit is made of sterner stuff and I believe will continue to strive to rid itself of that which is toxic to it. Drug therapy made possible better patient control than in former days when it was found necessary to use patient restraints such as straight-jackets and various cuff restraints to control acting out patients. I worked a number of years on an experimental drug ward where patients were easily managed with medications. Some were slightly lethargic, but over all were able to function in a reasonably normal manner. Since those days many improvements, in the form of new and improved medications, have been made. There have been fewer negative side-effects. There are now pills to reduce or eliminate depression, pills to improve thought disorders, pills to reduce anxiety and in short pills to bring welcome relief to people with mild to severe psychological problems. To my knowledge there have not been any claims made yet of a pill to cure any emotional problemcontrol yes, cure no. Still this must be considered a God send to have available relief and control. There are a number of human conditions that have proved so resistant to cure or even control as to be considered incurable by treatment professionals. Among those conditions are found Alcoholism, drug addiction, psychopathology, pedophilia and homosexualityand many more. Take alcoholism, for instance, most professionals and even Alcoholics Anonymous, a most respected treatment resource for alcoholics believes that once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. They teach, from experience, that a recovered alcoholic is only controlled and can never touch alcohol again and retain their sobriety. Same sex attraction is so difficult to change that most of those so afflicted believe that they were born that way and for good reason. To be sure control, though difficult, has been achieved by some to many in all of the aforementioned human conditions. Alcoholics and the drug addicted have been able to be free from the continued use of drugs and alcohol. Homosexuals and

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Pedophiles have achieved the state of not acting out their inclinations. And Psychopaths have succeeded in curbing their criminal acting outespecially after forty. Of course they have achieved the benefits of gaining greater control, but I dare say that there are not many that would rather have control instead of complete cure. To live a life of white knuckling it or gritting their teeth and baring it is not a fully satisfying prospect. As I said, A large number of homosexuals have given up trying to change what is to them their natural inclinations in favor of accepting that God just made them that way. The stress of white knuckling it proves to be too frustrating and taxing to continue trying. Though that is generally the best that most professional therapists can offer to one so afflicted. In all of the conditions just mentioned, if the inclinations mentioned are acted on the results would be considered a sin. Those thus engaged in such acting out would be considered sinners. Most religions, or at least Christian religions, believe that sinners can be cured through repentance. That is a much better hope than is offered by treatment professionals of today. One day, a number of years ago and after becoming acquainted with the principles of Deep Feeling Therapy, it dawned on me that the deep feeling process, as well as repentance, required the person being healed to be able to feel in order to heal. One of the main characteristics of Character Disordered people, or as they are now called sociopath, or antisocial or narcissistic personalities, is that they are bereft of empathy. They have hardened their feelings to the extent that they do not feel right and wrong as normal people do. Some, such as homosexuals and pedophiles, have different symptoms than the other mentioned anti-social personalities. Their symptoms are more benign and less antisocial. The damage done to them took place so early and more subtlety that their symptoms feel natural to them, however, they are just as separated from their feelings as are the others. The main difference is that they are less antisocial and are not in as much conflict with laws and society. It was obvious why character disordered people were hard to change as to seem incurable. Being feeling disordered, how could they be cured. They would have to be able to feel to be cured. Upon further reflection, I reasoned that even though these people suffered from a hampered ability to feel, they were still people and if they learned to be shut-down or hardened they could also be taught to feel again and if so they could also be cured of their negative symptoms. I also factored in to this awareness that the very foundation of all people is still an eternal spirit that is pure and with righteous underpinnings. A few years later I had the pleasure and good fortune to be able to conduct a treatment program in a prison setting were men were taught how to feel again. And they were able to change highly resistant behavior patterns of a lifetime and were indeed cured of their antisocial behavior patterns. The reason I know that Homosexuality is learned behavior and that people labeled homosexual are just not born that way, is because I have seen those learned patterns disappear as a sequence of traumatic events were relived and the pain gotten rid of. The symptoms changed in mathematical precision as the pain was processed. I believe that no person is smart enough to direct the precise path the healing would or should take, but I believe that almost any one could recognize the path after the fact. I also

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believe that one could observe and understand the relationship of the pain to the symptom as the healing progressed. 7. Understanding Dreams Understanding dreams and their meanings has long been the subject of great interest to man. That people dream has been known at least since recorded history. And that dreams are imbued with special mystical powers has also been noted. The Old Testament A number of dreams have become well known, by having been recorded in the Holy Scriptures by ancient prophets. The first place, in the King James version of the Old Testament, that a dream is mentioned is in Genesis 20: 3. It said that God warned Abimilech in a dream that he was being deceived by Lot and his wife. They told Abimilech that Lots wife was his sister to avoid what they perceived as a possible danger to themselves. In so doing, however, they put Abimilech in danger of sinning against God. By way of the dream the situation was resolved with no harm being done. The second recorded dream in the Bible was a dream that Jacob, grandson of Abraham, had. In this dream the God of Abraham, and Jacob said that his seed shall be as the dust of the earth covering the whole earth to become a blessing to all the families of the earth.24 A review of the Topical Guide to the Holy Scriptures, both ancient and modern, will reveal that dreams were considered important enough to record for the benefit of man. To be recorded as the word of God, lends further credence in the believed value of at least certain dreams. I wish to briefly review some of the recorded dreams to establish a foundation for this discussion. First, I think it is important to know that dreams are also referred to in scripture as night visions or visions of or in the night. It seems that important information is accessed by or transmitted to the subject by way of dreams or visions of the night usually for the benefit or enlightenment of the subjects. There are also visions of the day. They also may convey information of truth that is of importance. It is recognized today that every person dreams every night, as every person thinks everyday. There is as much variety in dreaming as there is in thinking. There is also variety in the quality of dreaming and thinking. There are dreams that are frightening and dreams that are pleasant, thinking that is frightening and thinking that is pleasing and refreshing. There are dreams that confuse and dreams that enlighten. Frightening dreams are usually called nightmares. Frightening thinking usually comes from being in a bad situation or from visualizing being in danger or a disastrous situation. Nightmares usually result in the subject waking up prematurely to escape the feared experiencesometimes in a sweat. The usual result of this is that the person involved is usually subjected to further nightmares.

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Frightening thinking (awfulizing or catastrofizing) usually results in the person developing phobias and more fears. So we can see that dreams can be very useful or something not to be desired. I hope to shed some light on this matter, so that the power of how we dream will be understood and worth working for. Now, back to a cursory look at some dreams that have been recorded in sacred writ and elsewhere. In addition to the already mentioned dreams, Jehovah said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.25 He went on to say that with Moses he would speak mouth to mouth and Moses would be able to behold the similitude of the Lord. When Solomon became King in Israel, following his fathers death, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and asked what he could do for Solomon. Solomon asked the Lord to give him an understanding heart to judge between Thy people that I may discern between good and bad.26 God granted his wish to be a wise Judge in Israel because his wish was righteous. A Philistine army confronted King Saul, who preceded David as king. And he sought directions from God and the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.27 Saul then sought guidance from a female spirit medium, which displeased the Lord. The Lord, speaking through Joel said: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will poor out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:28 In the following verses it was made clear that he was speaking of the last days our days. He finished his prophetic discourse with: And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.29 The New Testament In the gospel according to St. Matthew, first chapter verse twenty, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, who was espoused to Mary, telling him not to fear taking Mary as his wife because the child which is conceived in [her] [was] conceived of the Holy Ghost. Matthew further stated, Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: and knew her not till she had brought forth her first born son: and he called his name Jesus. The wise men from the East found Jesus in Bethlehem and worshipped him. They brought him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They were warned in a dream that

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they should not return to Herod, [and] they departed into their own country another way.30 Following their departure, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee into Egypt, and stay there until told otherwise. He was told that Herod would try to destroy his son Jesus.31 Matthew said that Joseph obeyed the angel in his dream and When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying out of Egypt have I called my son.32 After some time an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and told him that Herod was dead and he should take the young child and go into the land of Israel.33 Dreams in the Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon begins with an account by Nephi, son of the Prophet Lehi, and his familys departure from Jerusalem and subsequent journey through the wilderness. The story tells of them living in the desert for eight years, until arriving at a place of lush vegetation they called Bountiful. There they built a ship and crossed the oceans to eventually arrive in the Americas. The fact of this prosperous and wealthy family taking such a journey, fraught with danger and privation, to arrive in a land far across several oceans and far different than anything they knew, is an amazing story. It is even more amazing when considering that they would have to start over without the help of their former wealthusing only their own ingenuity and talents gained in an entirely different life. It is a story of the faith of some, in the reality of the existence of God and His ability to communicate and guide those who would be obedient, through the medium of visions and dreams. The Prophet Lehi had a vision in which he saw the destruction of Jerusalem and saw that many should be killed and others carried away captive into Babylon.34 Lehi praised God and gave thanks for the vision and revelations.35 At that time there were many prophets prophesying to the people that they must repent or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.36 Nephi said that his father Lehi had written many things which he saw in visions and dreams; and he also hath written many things that he had prophesied and spake unto his children37 Nephi said that his father was warned in a dream and in fact was commanded to depart from Jerusalem with his family into the wilderness to save their lives.38 Later, according to Nephi, father Lehi said he was commanded in another dream that his sons should return to Jerusalem to obtain the Plates of Brass on which was engraven the genealogy of his fathers and the record of the Jews.39 Again, after this, Nephi said It came to pass that the Lord spake unto him [Lehi] again and commanded another return to Jerusalem to obtain wives for his sons.40 It seems that just as in previously mentioned examples from the Old and New Testament, the principal characters in the Book of Mormon were given much guidance

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through dreams and visions and they put great value in that guidance. Also, the passage of time has confirmed the truthfulness and validity of the guidance given. Lehis Dream of the Tree of Life Father Lehi had a dream that has come to be called The Tree of Life Vision.41 His son Nephi quoted his father as saying Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision. Nephi then continued with Lehis detailed account of the dream: 3. And behold, because of the thing which I have seen, I have reason to rejoice in the Lord because of Nephi and also of Sam; for I have reason to suppose that they, and also many of their seed, will be saved. 4. But behold, Laman and Lemuel, I fear exceedingly because of you; for behold, methought I saw in my dream, a dark and dreary wilderness. 5. And it came to pass that I saw a man, and he was dressed in a white robe; and he came and stood before me. 6. And it came to pass that he spake unto me, and bade me follow him. 7. And it came to pass that as I followed him I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste. 8. And after I traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies. 9. And it came to pass after I had prayed unto the Lord I beheld a large and spacious field. 10. And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy. 11. And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen. 12. And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceeding great joy; wherefore, I begun to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit. 13. And as I cast my eyes roundabout, that perhaps I might discover my family also, I beheld a river of water; and it ran along, and it was near the tree of which I was partaking of the fruit. 14. And I looked to behold whence it came; and I saw the head thereof a little way off; and at the head thereof I beheld your mother, Sariah, and Sam, and Nephi; and they stood as if they knew not whither they should go. 15. And it came to pass that I beckoned unto them; and I also did say unto them with a loud voice that they should come unto me, and partake of the fruit, which is desirable above all other fruit. 16. And it came to pass that they did come unto me and partake of the fruit also.

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17. And it came to pass that I was desirous that Laman and Lemuel should come and partake of the fruit also; wherefore, I cast mine eyes towards the head of the river, that perhaps I might see them. 18. And it came to pass that I saw them, but they would not come unto me and partake of the fruit. 19. And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree by which I stood. 20. And I also beheld a straight and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood; and it also led by the head of the fountain, unto a large and spacious field, as if it had been a world. 21. And I saw numberless concourses of people, many of whom were pressing forward, that they might obtain the path which led unto the tree by which I stood. 22. And it came to pass that they did come forth, and commence in the path which led to the tree. 23. And it came to pass that there arose a mist of darkness; yea, even an exceeding great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had commenced in the path did lose their way, that they wandered off and were lost. 24. And it came to pass that I beheld others pressing forward, and they came forth and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron, even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the tree. 25. And after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree they did cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed. 26. And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld on the other side of the river of water. A great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth. 27. And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceeding fine; mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit. 28. And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost. 29. And now I, Nephi, do not speak all the words of my father. 30. But, to be short in writing behold, he saw other multitudes pressing forward; and they came and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press their way forward, continually holding fast to the rod of iron, until they came forth and fell down and partook of the fruit of the tree. 31. And he also saw other multitudes feeling their way towards that great and spacious building. 32.And it came to pass that many were drowned in the depths of the fountain; and many were lost from his view, wandering in strange roads. 33. And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter into the building they did point their finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also, but we heeded them not.

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34. These are the words of my father: For as many as heeded them, had fallen away. 35. And Laman and Lemuel partook not of the fruit, said my father. 36. And it came to pass after my father had spoken all the words of his dream or vision, which were many, he said unto us, because of these things which he saw in a vision, he exceedingly feared for Laman and Lemuel; yea, he feared lest they should be cast off from the presence of the Lord. 37. And he did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent, that they would harken to his words, that perhaps the Lord would be merciful to them, and not cast them off; yea, my father did preach unto them. 38. And after he had preached unto them and also prophesied unto them to keep the commandments of the Lord; and he did cease speaking to them.42 After sharing the message of the dream, Lehi prophesied and predicted to his children many things that should come to pass in the distant future. He predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent Babylon captivity, and in 600 years the coming of the Messiah and his baptism, death and resurrection in detail. He said they would be led to a land of promise as part of the dispersion of the House of Israel to all parts of the world. The gentiles would receive the fullness of the gospel and after that the remnants of the House of Israel would come to the knowledge of the true Messiah. After Lehis teaching and pleading with his children, Nephi was desirous of knowing for himself the things his father testified of. He believed that if his father and other prophets from the beginning of time could know and testify of these things, he could also if he was willing to seek diligently as they had.43 Nephi said, As I sat pondering in mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high mountain, which I never had before seen, and upon which I never had before set my foot.44 In that state he was asked what he wanted and then was guided to the answers that he sought. First, he wanted to know the meaning of the tree which my father saw. The Spirit, whom he recognized as the Spirit of the Lord, showed him visions, as if they were movie clips, and tutored him as to the birth and ministry of the Messiah and at the same time the meaning of the tree of life. He saw the miracles and healings of the Lamb of God and also his judgement by the world and subsequent crucifixion. Following that, the angel helped him see the future of his own seed and also that of his brothers. He saw the contention between his children and their children and the great divide between them. During these scenes and throughout them, the meanings in the Tree of Life vision were revealed. The vision continued and Nephi saw the discovery and colonization of America, the gentile apostasy and restoration of the gospel, as well as the coming forth of latterday scripture and the build-up of Zion.45 He said he saw much more, but was forbidden to write more. He finished by saying that he saw the things, which my father saw, and the angel of the Lord did make them known to me and testified that the things he had written are true.46

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Appropriate comments and observations will be made following the sharing of all the various dreams. Review of Some Latter-Day Dreams In a book written by Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., she related a dream she had concerning her husband Joseph Smith Sr. and his oldest brother Jesse Smith. The circumstance that preceded the dream was that Joseph Smith Sr. had started to attend religious services at the Methodist church with his wife Lucy Mack Smith. Josephs brother Jessie was so upset, that Joseph Sr. decided it was best to stop attending the meetings. This hurt Lucy, but she said nothing. Instead she went to a nearby grove and prayed to the Lord in behalf of her husband that he might become more religiously inclined. After praying some time and being sad, she went to bed. She soon fell asleep and had the following dream: I thought that I stood in a large and beautiful meadow, which lay a short distance from the house in which we lived, and that everything around me wore an aspect of peculiar pleasantness. The first thing that attracted my special attention in this magnificent meadow, was a very pure and clear stream of water, which ran through the midst of it; and as I traced this stream, I discovered two trees standing upon its margin, both of which were on the same side of the stream. These trees were very beautiful, they were swell proportioned, and towered with majestic beauty to a great height. Their branches, which added to their symmetry and glory, commenced near the top, and spread themselves in majestic grandeur around. I gazed upon them with wonder and admiration; and after beholding them a short time, I saw one of them was surrounded with a bright belt, that shown like burnished gold, but far more brilliantly. Presently a gentle breeze passed by, and the tree encircled with this gold zone, bent gracefully before the wind, and waved its beautiful branches in the light air. As the wind increased, this tree assumed the most lively and animated appearance, and seemed to express in its motions the utmost joy and happiness. If it had been an intelligent creature, it could not have conveyed, by the power of language, the idea of joy and gratitude so perfectly as it did; and even the stream that rolled beneath it shared, apparently, every sensation felt by the tree, for, as the branches danced over the stream, it would swell gently, then recede again, with a motion as soft as the breathing of an infant, but as lively as the dancing of a sunbeam. The belt also partook of the same influence, and, as it moved in unison with the motion of the stream and of the tree, it increased continually in refulgence and magnitude, until it became exceedingly glorious. I turned my eyes upon its fellow, which stood opposite; but it was not surrounded with the belt of light as the former, and it stood erect and fixed as a pillar of marble. No matter how strong the wind blew over it, not a leaf was

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stirred, not a bough was bent; but obstinately stiff it stood, scorning alike the zephyr's breath, or the power of the mighty storm. I wondered at what I saw, and said in my heart, What can be the meaning of all this? And the interpretation given me was, that these personated my husband and his oldest brother, Jesse Smith; that the stubborn and unyielding tree was like Jesse; that the other, more pliant and flexible, was like Joseph, my husband; that the breath of heaven, which passed over them, was the pure and undefiled gospel of the Son of God, which gospel Jesse would always resist, but which Joseph, when he was more advanced in life, would hear and receive with his whole heart, and rejoice therein; and unto him would be added intelligence, happiness, glory, and everlasting life.47 While still in the dream the interpretation of the dream became obvious to Lucy and she knew all would work out well for Joseph as to his spiritual welfare. Josephs mother, Lucy, related the following dream of her husband Joseph Sr. as he told it to her the morning following the dream: I seemed to be traveling in an open, barren field, and as I was traveling, I turned my eyes towards the east, the west, the north and the south, but could see nothing save dead, fallen timber. Not a vestige of life, either animal or vegetable, could be seen; besides, to render the scene still more dreary, the most death-like silence prevailed. No sound of anything animate could be heard in all the field. I was alone in this gloomy desert, with the exception of an attendant spirit, who kept constantly by my side. Of him I inquired the meaning of what I saw, and why I was thus traveling in such a dismal place. He answered thus:This field is the world, which now lieth inanimate and dumb, in regard to the true religion, or plan of salvation; but travel on, and by the wayside you will find on a certain log a box, the contents of which, if you eat thereof, will make you wise, and give you wisdom and understanding. I carefully observed what was told me by my guide, and proceeding a short distance, I came to the box. I immediately took it up, and placed it under my left arm; then with eagerness I raised the lid, and began to taste of its contents; upon which all manner of beast, horned cattle, and roaring animals, rose up on every side in the most threatening manner possible, tearing the earth, tossing their horns, and bellowing most terrifically all around me, and they finally came so close upon me, that I was compelled to drop the box and fly for my life. Yet, in the midst of all this I was perfectly happy, though I awoke trembling.48 From that time forward, Lucy Smith, said that Joseph Sr. was more convinced than ever that professors of religion knew no more concerning the Kingdom of God than those that made no profession of religion. Joseph Sr., soon after in 1811, received another vision which Lucy included in her history:

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I thought, said he, I was traveling in an open desolate field, which appeared to be very barren. As I was thus traveling, the thought suddenly came into my mind that I had better stop and reflect upon what I was doing, before I went any farther. So I asked myself, What motive can I have in traveling here, and what place can this be? My guide, who was by my side, as before, said, This is the desolate world; but travel on. The road was so broad and barren that I wondered why I should travel in it; for, said I to myself, Broad is the road, and wide is the gate that leads to death, and many there be that walk therein; but narrow is the way, and strait is the gate that leads to everlasting life, and few there be that go in thereat. Traveling a short distance further, I came to a narrow path. This path I entered, and when I traveled a little way in it, I beheld a beautiful stream of water, which ran from the east to the west. Of this stream, I could see neither the source nor yet the mouth; but as far as my eyes could extend I could see a rope, running along the bank of it, about as high as a man could reach, and beyond me was a low, but very pleasant valley, in which stood a tree such as I had never seen before. It was exceedingly handsome, insomuch that I looked upon it with wonder and admiration. Its beautiful branches spread themselves somewhat like an umbrella, and it bore a kind of fruit, in shape much like a chestnut bur, and as white as snow, or, if possible, whiter. I gazed upon the same with considerable interest, and as I was doing so, the burs or shells commenced opening and shedding their particles, or the fruit which they contained, which was of dazzling whiteness. I drew near and began to eat of it, and found it delicious beyond description. As I was eating, I said in my heart, I cannot eat this alone, I must bring my wife and children, that they may partake with me. Accordingly, I went and brought my family, which consisted of a wife and seven children, and we all commenced eating and praising God for this blessing. We were exceedingly happy, insomuch that our joy could not easily be expressed. While thus engaged, I beheld a spacious building standing opposite the valley which we were in, and it appeared to reach the very heavens. It was full of doors and windows, and they were all filled with people, who were finely dressed. When these people observed us in the low valley, under the tree, they pointed the finger of scorn at us, and treated us with all manner of disrespect and contempt. But their contumely we utterly disregarded. I presently turned to my guide and inquired of him the meaning of the fruit that was so delicious. He told me it was the pure love of God, shed abroad in the hearts of all those who love him, and keep his commandments. He then commanded me to go and bring the rest of my children. I told him that we were all there. No, he replied, look yonder, you have two more, and you must bring them also. Upon raising my eyes, I saw two small children, standing some distance off. I immediately went to them, and brought them to the tree; upon which they commenced eating with the rest, and we all rejoiced together. The more we ate, the more we seemed to desire, until we seven got down upon our knees and scooped it up, eating it by double handfuls. After feasting in this manner a short time, I asked my guide what was the meaning of the spacious building which I saw. He replied, It is Babylon, it is Babylon, and

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it must fall. The people in the doors and windows are the inhabitants thereof, who scorn and despise the Saints of God because of their humility. I soon awoke, clapping my hands together for joy.49 Dreams of Parley P. Pratt In the autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, Parley shared two dreams that I think bears including on this subject. The first is short and the second is quite extensive. It will be given in his own words to be followed by some of my observations: In July, 1836, while lodging at the house of brother Joseph Fielding, the voice of the Lord came unto me in a dream, saying Parley! And I answered: Here am I; for I was in a vision of the Spirit and I knew it was the Lord who spake unto me. And he said When did I ever reveal anything unto you in a dream and it failed to come to pass? And I answered: Never, Lord. Well, then He continued, go unto this people and cry unto them with a mighty voice that they repent, lest I smite them with a curse and they die; for, notwithstanding the present fruitfulness of the earth, there shall be a famine for the Word of the Lord; for I will call my servants out from their midst and send them to the nations afar off, Having heard these words I took courage, and I continued to lift up my voice in the congregations, both in town and country, testifying of the gospel and warning the people of things to come. Many repented and were baptized, while many hardened their hearts and were filled with a contentious and lying spirit. But the Saints were filed with faith joy, and love; and they met oft, and had great union and peace, and were happy in the society of each other.50 The second dream will also be given in his own words. He will describe the circumstances that occasioned his dream and then describe the dream Afterward he will tell of the literal fulfillment of his dream. I believe this will further our understanding of how dreams can work for our betterment and give some encouragement to make ourselves worthy conduits of truth. He started his narrative by saying: After spending the season in continued labors, and organizing the Church in many places, I was about to return in October to Kirtland, Ohio, to my home. Now, there was a man named Caird, who, previous to my visit to Canada, had been over from England as a preacher, who pretended to be sent of God by revelation. He had preached many things, and told the people that God had raised up apostles in England, and organized the true church, and was sending preachers thence unto all the world, to prepare the way for the coming of the Son of Man. This man held to his sprinkling of infants, which he called baptism. He also held that the church, of which he was a representative and messenger, included the national Church of England; and all others who had been baptized (sprinkled), whether Catholic or Protestant. This great, universal

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church was the true church, only needing the restoration of apostles and gifts which had now commenced to be restored. This man had great influence in Canada on his former visit, and he had long been looked for to return to Toronto on his second visit. The people were all expectation, and very anxious that he should arrive in time to meet me before I should return home; for many persons greatly wondered that there should arise about the same time one church in America and another in England, both professing apostolic power and universal jurisdiction. Some of those who had heard both of us, tried to think that both systems were one and would run together. Others said they would wait and see which serpent swallowed the other before they would join either. Some affirmed that Mr. Caird would never shrink from the investigation of anything, therefore, he must embrace Mormonism; for it only has to be investigated to be appreciated. Others equally affirmed Mr. Pratt never shrank from investigation, and, therefore, they must meet each other; must come to an understanding; must become one, or else one of their systems must be shown to be very erroneous; for these men neither of them ever found his master in any of the sects here in Canada at any rate. Such is a specimen of the sayings and feelings of an excited public, in view of the meeting of two such men. On my own part, although I knew his system was erroneous and not founded in truth, yet I had formed a very favorable opinion of the man, and had made up my mind to meet a fearless champion who would not shrink one moment from a full and free investigation. Believing this, I felt in high hopes that he would be an instrument in the hands of God to receive and spread the truth. This man still lingered at Kingston, two hundred miles distant, and did not come up to Toronto as expected. To satisfy the anxiety of the people, I at length proposed meeting one Sabbath, that I would take the steamer the next morning and go down to Kingston, and see this strange man. That same night I had a dream, as follows: I thought I was in a vast wilderness of wild beasts of every description, among which was a species of elephant so large that its trunk reached nearly to the tops of the tall trees, and when he walked the earth trembled; the beasts of the field fled from before him, and the trees were swayed on either side of him as slender reeds. At this I was afraid, and I waft myself up by the power of the Spirit, and sat on the top of a tall tree. As he approached, I reflected as follows: Why should such a man as I fear? I have any amount of power given me of God, I will, therefore, descend to earth before him; for he can never harm me. I accordingly descended. He considered this a defiance on my part, so he boasted that I had no power, and that I could not stand before him. At this I put forth my hand and caught him by the trunk, and lifting him from the ground by the power of the Spirit, I dashed him to the ground a number of times; at this he seemed to dwindle down to about the size of a suckling calf, and finally turned into a serpent and swelled out to the length of about a hundred feet, and half the size of a mans body. He then spoke great swelling words in defiance of my power; said it was not the power of God, but

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only the power of a man; he continued to mock and defy me, say, If you have the great power of God, why do you not pull me in pieces? At this I saw a great white stone, smooth and round at the top, in the shape of half of an egg, and about six feet in diameter. The serpent coiled himself around this stone, and professed to be fastened to it. And he said; Now I will remain fast to this rock, and give you a fair chance to pull me to pieces. I answered, you are not fastened to the rock, but will slip from it the moment I pull, Nay, said he, try me, and see. I laid hold of him, and the same power came on me as before, but as I began to pull he slipped from the rock. I then tried to fasten him to some weeds or some rubbish which was near, but the moment I pulled he would slip from them; I could not, therefore, fasten him to anything. I said to him, you will not remain fastened to anything; how, then, can I pull you to pieces? Being a little at a loss to know what to do, I turned to Elder Orson Hyde, who seemed to stand by, and said, Brother Orson, see those wide jaws and that small neck; it is an excellent hold; seize him by the neck and hold him fast, and in the name of Jesus I will give an almighty pull. He did so, and I pulled; the serpent then dwindled down to the size of a small snake half a yard in length, and crawled off and hid among the grass. I awoke under the strong impression that the great beast and the serpent represented Mr. Caird; and that the rock was the true gospel, to which he pretended to be fast. This impression was so different from the opinion I had formed of the man, that I felt greatly disappointed. I was not willing to believe the vision; I exclaimed in the bitterness of sorrow and disappointment: Is it possible that this is Mr. Caird, so beloved, so revered as a great and good man? I hardly dare believe it. O Lord, if this vision is of thee and its application, please show me the interpretation of it in plainness, that I may not err. I immediately fell asleep again and dreamed as follows: I thought I took a steamer and arrived in Kingston at early dawn. I thought I took up one of the principal streets, directly northward from the water, and put up at a house of entertainment. I then inquired for Mr. Caird, and was told that he was on the same street near me. I saw him, and tried to tell him of the glorious fulness of the gospel. He immediately rejected, and refused to hear me, and commenced to speak reproachfully of me and the cause. I replied to him in the language of the New Testament: Doth our law judge a man before it hear him? He answered with a sneer: I am perfectly willing to judge Mormonism without hearing it; I would not break my shins to hear it anyhow. I awoke a second time, feeling satisfied in regard to Mr. Caird. I arose next morning and told the people that I now knew Mr. Caird; that he was false, and would bitterly and utterly refuse to investigate or hear the truth. I told them I had no desire to go see him, for the Lord had shown him to me in a dream, and I knew more about him than all of them. This, however, they could not realize; they assured me that he was no such man; and, as they had found me the means to go and see him, and had chosen a man to go with me, they rather insisted on my going. Well, said I, I will go, but you will find the matter just as I tell you. So I went, accompanied by a Mr. Goodson.

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We landed in Kingston at early dawn, went up the street. I wrote him a line seeking an interview. No answer was returned. We waited all day, and attended his meeting at evening. He preached well, and showed intelligence. I could detect nothing to condemn. As he was about closing, I prayed the Lord to cause him to show himself, that I might discern his spirit. On a sudden he broke off from his subject, and commenced railing against Mormonism at a most horrible rate. He said he had that day received a line from one of these impostors, calling him brother, and professing to be of the new church, which had been lately organized in England by the spirit of revelation; by this false profession, he said, they had deceived some of his friends in Toronto. Now these things were lies. I arose in the meeting and asked to speak, but did not obtain privilege. I, however. Told the people that Mr. Caird had lied; he had received no line from an Elder of the Church of the Saints calling him brother, or professing to be of his new church, organized in England; I defied him to produce such a line. All the answer the multitude returned to this was to hiss, and to cry, Gold Bible! Gold Bible!New Revelation! etc. Next morning we published a printed handbill with a statement of his lying, a copy of the line I had really sent to him, and a statement of our doctrine as Latter-day Saints. This we circulated freely in his next meeting, challenging him to refute the charge, or meet us in debate. We could draw no answer from him. We circulated the handbills in the streets by hundreds, and then sent plenty of them by mail to our friends in Toronto. The bill was headed: doth our law judge a man before it hear him? Our friends in Toronto were astonished above measure at the confirmation of the dream, in which God by his servant had revealed a mans spirit, and clearly exposed the heart of a wicked man whom his best acquaintances were unable to discern.51 A Bit of History Sigmond Freud, arguably the father of modern psychoanalysis, placed a lot of credence on the value of dream interpretation in treating patients. It seems he thought it took a lot of education and training to correctly understand the meanings of dreams. Arthur Janov, Ph.D., a psychotherapist, in more recent times, was himself trained in standard psychoanalytic understandings based in part on Freudian theories and treatment methodology.52Dr. Janov, in his first book, tells of an unexpected event that happened while he was treating a patient. The event happened prior to 1970. That patient, almost by accident, accessed some powerful, deep feelings of pain when Janov asked him to cry out Mommy! Daddy! At first the patient refused, but on further encouragement he complied with the resultant expression of deep felt pain. From that singular experience, were eventually developed Primal Therapy and the development of the Primal Institute of California for the treatment of patients suffering from various forms of neurosis. Primal theory was further developed, as it became understood through the practice and healing of his patients and their feedback.

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In 1970 Primal Theory was published in a book called the Primal Scream.53 As previously mentioned, I believe that Janov has added to our understanding of how to successfully treat neurosis. He has finished what Freud started. He not only came to understand the part buried feelings play in the formation of neurosis, but also how releasing those buried feelings results in true healing. At last, cure was possible to think of when dealing with mental and emotional problems. Now I would like to look at what Janov has to say about dream phenomena. He said that dreams are first, extensions of waking behavior Real peopledo not have unreal dreams anymore than they would act in unreal ways during the day. Second, symbolic dreams are only functions of symbolic people. He said, Many months of Primal Therapy had gone by before I noticed that as therapy progressed, dreams became more realFurthermore their dreams were in the present and not in the past, as are so many neurotic dreamsThe normal has his past out of the way. He lives in the present day and night. Janov said, a thirdand majorpoint in regard to symbolic dreams, is that they serve to protect the sanity of the dreamerA nightmare is the primal feeling breaking through the neurotic defenseNightmares are night time insanity (p.278- 279)Nightmares seem to drain off enough tension so as to prevent the self from being insane during the day. The person with inordinate pain often is unable to confine his insanity to night time hours. (P. 283) In 1971 several young PhD.s, Joseph Hart, Richard Corriere and Jerry Binder and six other colleagues established a treatment center in Los Angeles, California called The Center for Feeling Therapy. The founders of the Center for Feeling Therapy were not only the therapists, but were also in therapy themselves. They and their fellow therapists joined in the healing process along with their patients because they recognized that all people have need of being more feeling people. In 1975 Hart, Corriere and Binder wrote a book called Going Sane: An Introduction to FeelingTherapyin which they introduced their theory of Feeling Therapy. In their preface they gave credit for their theory to our direct associations with the ideas and methods of Eugene Gendlin, Carl Rogers, Alexander Lowen, Arthur Janov, and Stanley Keleman54 It was several years later, in 1977, that Corriere and Hart co-authored a book in which they wrote about their research related to dreams. They learned how to use their dreams as a potent means of healing. The results of that experiment was put in a book they called the The Dream Makers.55 I understand that they also conducted dream workshops where they taught participants how to make their dreams more potent resources to themselves. I read the book in 1977, soon after its publication and found it to be the best thing I had ever read on understanding dreams to that time. It currently remains invaluable in the understanding of dreams and how to make them a valuable resource to the individual. In the book they explain in easy step by step ways to achieve the ability to make ones dreams work for them. Some of what they called teachings are listed as follows: 1. It is important to remember your dreams. 2. Your dreams and feelings can work for or against you. 3. Dreams are feelings. 4. Dreams are a completion process.

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5. Dreams are a picturing process. They noticed in their work that as the people changed their daytime feelingstheir dreams changed in parallel, becoming less and less symbolic and working for them. Also, that When you continue to have feelings each day that do not get expressed or felt, [their] dreams continue to be symbolic."56 The thing that helped me the most, was to realize that the key to having dreams that work for you (working dreams) is that by going through the cleansing process of feeling deep, or repentance, one of the rewards is to have dreams that teach and guide you. I also found that by noticing the way a clients dream life was going I could monitor the therapeutic progress of the client. Characteristics of a Working Dream A Working Dream may be easily recognized. It would usually have some or most of the following characteristics: 1. Clarity, it would be clear and easily remembered. 2. Feeling, there would be strong feeling. This would add to the ability to remember it. 3. Role, the dreamer would be the central figure in the dream and be an active participant. 4. Real, the scene being enacted would be a real situation with real people taking part. 5. Revelation, some decision or understanding would take place that would give the dreamer guidance and encouragement to act upon that knowledge. 6. Awareness, such that the dreamer is usually aware that he or she is dreaming, 7. And most importantly, the dreamer will understand the message so well that he or she would need no outside help to understand the meaning of the dream. Looking at Dreams in Light of This Knowledge Let us look at one of the most well known stories in the Old Testament, where dreams and their interpretation are central to the story. It happened to Joseph, son of Jacob, who was sold into Egypt. Potifers wife who was rebuffed by Joseph in her attempts to seduce him had him put in prison following a false accusation.57 While in prison, Joseph accurately interpreted the dreams of the Pharaohs chief butler and chief cook.58 One day the Pharaoh sought help in understanding the meaning of two dreams he had had. He first dreamed that he stood by a river and saw seven kine (cattle) healthy and well-fed coming up out of the water and fed in a meadow. Then seven poor looking and skinny kine came up out of the water and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the poor looking and lean kine ate up the well fed. At this point the Pharaoh awoke. Then he slept and dreamed a second time. This time he saw seven ears of corn on one stalk of excellent and luxuriant quality. And also seven thin ears. The thin ears

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devoured the seven rank and good ears. Then the Pharaoh awoke and found it was a dream.59 The Pharaoh was disturbed by his dreams, but none of the magicians or wisemen in the land could interpret the dreams. Pharaohs baker remembered Joseph and his having correctly interpreted his and the chief Cooks dreams and told the Pharaoh. Then Pharaoh summoned Joseph and Joseph prepared himself for the audience and came quickly. Pharaoh asked him if he could interpret his dreams. To this query Joseph said It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace, (Gen. 41:16) Then Pharaoh told Joseph his dreams as fully as he could. Then Joseph gave his interpretation. He said that God had shown Pharaoh what was about to take place. There was to be seven years of plenty to be followed by seven years of famine. He said the two dreams signified the same thing and was given two times for emphasis. Then he suggested to the Pharaoh the steps he could take to safeguard his people against the famine. The rest of the story is biblical history.60 It is important to note that the Pharaohs dreams had an important message to convey to him, but the message came in such a highly symbolic way that he could not understand nor interpret the meaning of his own dream. King Nebuchadnezzars Dream The second dream I should like to review now is that of King Nebuchadnezzar.61 Following the destruction of Jerusalem, about 587 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar took many of the bright, young children of Israel to Babylon to be reared and taught the learning and tongue of the Caldeans. Among those were the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. They were very bright and lived according to a strict health code in which they ate no meat nor drank wine.62 Daniel, in addition to knowledge and skill in learning and wisdom, had understanding in all visions and dreams.63 In the second year of the rein of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams that troubled him and caused him to awake from his sleep.64 The king was so troubled that he sought help from all sources in his kingdom. He called wisemen. magicians, astrologers and sorcerers and the Caldeans to gather before him and show the king his dreams. They asked him to tell them the dream and they would give him the interpretation. However, he had forgotten the dream. Nevertheless, the king said that if they did not tell him his dream and the interpretation of it they would all be slain. Though they protested that no man could tell him his own forgotten dream, nor would any ruler ask that of any of their subjects, the king held fast to his threat. When Daniel became aware of this edict of the king (which edict was meant for Daniel and his companions as well), he asked for a little time and he would show the king the interpretation of his dream. Daniel and his companions sought help from their God. After this, the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision (dream). Daniel was soon brought before the king and Daniel said that the secret could not be given by the wiseman, the astrologers, the magicians, or the soothsayers, but that

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there is a God in Heaven that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days65 He then said that the king saw a great image that the form thereof was terrible. It represented the various kingdoms of the earth that would follow his kingdom. The head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzars kingdom and he was the king of kings and all other kingdoms would be inferior to his. He continued to tell of the other kingdoms that would follow down to the last days. Daniel said that in the last days the God of Heaven would set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. It would break in pieces all of the latter-day kingdoms and it shall stand forever. Daniel said that this secret was not revealed to him because of any wisdom that he had more than any other person, but for the sakes of the people the king had condemned to die. The king recognized that Daniels God was truly a God of Gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secretsHe then heaped many honors and powers upon Daniel.66 A review of king Nebuchadnezzars dream reveals that the king had dreams (in plural) that were troubling and even woke him up.67 this kind of dream is currently referred to as a nightmare. Janov called nightmares night time insanity.68 There did come a time when Nebuchadnezzar had a mental breakdown and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles feathers, and his nails like birds claws.69 He later returned to sanity and worshipped God and was restored to his kingdom.70 Another sign of an impaired feeling state of the king was that soon after the dream he forgot it even though the emotional impact remained. On the other hand, Daniel kept himself spiritually and physically receptive to the inspiration he received in his dreams that helped him know the kings dream and its interpretation. He could have received some help from his knowledge of the words of the prophets from the Hebrew scriptures as well. My own Dream During the night of August 17,2004 I seemed to dream most of the night. I was up two or three times (as usual) during the night, but each time I returned to dreaming. There were several themes, I think, but only one I vaguely remember. That is until the last one just before I awakened. I made a point to remember that dream. It seems that the main theme was that I was fighting against Lucifer. Just as I was waking up, the main thought I was left with was that I should never give up the fight and should not enter into any peace compromise with him. And also I should use the defenses mentioned in the scripture called Putting On The Armour of God and I would be well served.71 Summary and Conclusions 1. It seems that the secret of understanding dreams and making them work for you rather than against you lies in ones ability to live according to true principles. Especially being open and true to your own feelings. That means to

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face and process all feelings both pleasant and unpleasant. It means that the many losses and traumas one might go through during this mortal probation must be faced, processed and learned from. That is what it takes to remain a feeling person and feeling people have dreams that will work for themgiving healing and guidance. 2. It seems that to have working dreams one can approach it from at least two angles: To clean out ones emotional garbage through repentance or processing deep feelings. And to take ones dreams and use suggestions found in the Dream Makers to increase ones ability to focus more on ones dreams bringing greater clarity, involvement and emotionality. That will help one to increasingly have working dreams and develop greater ability to understand and live by them. 8. Penetrating the Veil Prophets, through time and modern day, have talked about a veil of forgetfulness that has been drawn, separating mortal man from the remembrance of his former life as a begotten spirit child of God the Father.72 This veil was a necessary part of the mortal experience, both to validate the test of mortality and because of the mechanics of receiving a new body of flesh and bones that had not yet had mortal experience recorded in the brain and mind. We might make note of the fact that the means of separating us from the memory of our former life was effected by use of the metaphor of a veil and not one of stone or steel. Stone of steel would denote impenetrability. A veil, on the other hand, is usually made of cloth of loose weave. The metaphor here suggests that the further away from the veil we stand, the less one is able to see through. However, if one gets close to the veil and stands with nose pressing on the veil, it is possible to faintly see through the veil. Some very important scriptural references of seeing through the veil can be found in the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon. One took place when the brother of Jared took sixteen transparent stones, which he had fashioned from molten rock, to the top of a mountain to seek help from the Lord. He needed an artificial light to give light in eight vessels that would otherwise be dark inside, while traversing the seas. Let us examine some of those references now. In the Book of Ether (chapter 3:6,913) it reads as follows: 3. And it came to pass that when the brother of Jared had said these words, behold, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger. And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord, for he was struck with fear 9. And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger. Sawest thou more than this?

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10. And he answered: Nay; Lord, show thyself unto me. 11. And the Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak? 12. And he answered: Yea Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not lie. 13. And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said: Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore I show myself unto you. 16. Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh. Moroni continued his narrative of the brother of Jareds encounter with Jesus Christ in his spirit body by saying: 19. And because of the knowledge of this man he could not be kept from beholding within the veil; and he saw the finger of Jesus, which, when he saw, he fell with fear; for he knew it was the finger of the Lord; and he had faith no longer, for he knew, nothing doubting. 20. Wherefore, having this perfect knowledge of God, he could not be kept from with in the veil; therefore he saw Jesus; and he did minister unto him.73 The Lord then gave him specific instructions to treasure up these things, which ye have seen and heard and show it to no man until after he had come to earth in the flesh.74 Moroni further stated that the Lord could not withhold anything from him (the brother of Jared) for he knew that the Lord could show him all things.75 Moroni also said and there were many whose faith was so exceeding strong, even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil, but truly saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith, and they were glad.76 It seems from the foregoing, that seeing through the veil is up to us. If we have enough faith to generate the knowledge and are willing to pay the price that knowledge exacts, we could all have the privilege of seeing through the veil. It is apparently not an easy thing to do as evidenced by the few who have possessed the knowledge to do it. Near Death Experiences Of course, everyone will someday pass through the veil and see and know for him or herself that there is life beyond this mortal life. It is from those who have passed through the veil briefly, through near death and returned that we have received the greatest testimony of life beyond the grave. There were two instances that I heard first hand about near death experiences. The first I heard, while attending a Sunday School class in about 1946, that my teacher, Mrs. Brown, related to her class; I was about 13 years old at the time. She told us that when she was nine years old she contracted several childhood diseases at the same time and was near death. She described the scene in some detail. She said she was on

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an elevated bed in the living room surrounded by a doctor, her parents, and several others. She soon found herself lifting out of her body and could see much better what was going around her. She said she could see people standing on her lawn and other people coming from many directions toward her house. She looked up in a corner of the room and saw her father, who had recently passed away, standing in the air. He was clothed in a robe-like garment and looked upon her with love and concern, but spoke not a word. Even at that she understood him to give her a choice to remain or go with him. At this moment she saw the doctor pronounce her dead. She could see her mothers cry of anguish and said it seemed as though her hair went gray as she watched. She made the instant decision to be with her mother in her time of need. She soon returned to her body, a surprised doctor and a grateful mother. In later days others confirmed what Mrs. Brown had seen as the veil parted. Her revealing her part of the experience also edified them. I think that was the only lesson that stayed with me consciously from my early Sunday School days. The second such experience took place many years later. It preceded the death of my eleven-year-old son in a drowning accident by about one week. We had gone to visit my favorite uncle and aunt in Idaho. We visited several days and while there, Aunt Zina told us of having slipped on the ice a few months earlier that resulted in her leg being broken. She said that while she was in the hospital she suffered a heart seizure and passed away. She was able to see the doctors working on her. She also said she saw her brother, who had died seventeen years earlier, standing at the foot of her bed. He made no audible sounds, but communicated clearly that it was not her time to go. She was told she still had something important to do. She soon returned to her body. At the time of our visit, she was still not certain what she had to do. She said, I guess it must be to take care of Rupert (her husband). They were both about eighty years old at the time. Her husband, my Uncle Rupert, died at the age of eighty-four and she lived until she was past ninety-two. I never found out what her purpose was; however, after my sons death, I was greatly consoled by her witness of the continuation of the spirit after death. Another Near-death Experience Near death happenings and daytime visions give similar testimony of a parting of the veil that separates mortality from an unseen spirit realm. In a book, written by George G. Richie, M.D. and Elizabeth Sherrill, containing the story of his encounter with death and the amazing adventure he had between the time his spirit left his body until it returned ten or so minutes later.77 Richie came from that experience convinced that ones consciousness does not cease with physical death, and that how we spend our time on earth, the kind of relationships we build, is vastly, infinitely more important than we know."(p. 15-16) His story deserves a complete reading to do it justice and to gain an understanding of how that experience influenced the nature and meaning of the total rest of his life.

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Aside from my interest in his story giving further credibility to a life after death, I was also interested in the specifics of his story that will be made clear shortly. One of the specifics came early in his experience. He found himself in the presence of a being of light whose brilliance could not be tolerated by mortal eyes. The thought came to him with stupendous certainty: You are in the presence of the Son of God.78 Also, came with that same mysterious inner certainty, I knew that this Man loved me. Far more even than power, what emanated from this Presence was unconditional love. The being seemed to know every unlovable thing about him and loved him just the same. George was helped to see scenes of his life from the present to his birth and back again. He saw all the facets of his life both pleasant and troubling. He said that in this strange realm communication took place by thought instead of speech.79 And through it all, the central question was How much have you loved with your life?80 Another thing that greatly interested me was his description of the various conditions one might encounter in the spirit realm depending on ones actions and choices made in mortal life. Those conditions were revealed to George, while the being of light (Jesus) accompanied him. He was shown the state of those who had committed suicide. They seemed to express being sorry to someone who couldnt hear them and do so over and over. Then he was shown the condition of those who had acquired addictions, including drinking and smoking, etc. who still had their cravings, but out of their physical bodies, they had no physical substance that would allow them to grip glasses, bottles or whatever so as to satisfy their cravings. Others were people locked into habits of mind and emotion such as, hatred, lust, destructive thought patterns.81 He also noticed that all these distressed souls were being ministered to and watched over, but they didnt know it because of their total absorption in something other than Jesus. The next place they visited was in surroundings that reminded him of a large university campus where people were quietly engaged in intellectual, scientific, and musical pursuits of an advanced nature. It seemed that though this was obviously a place for those who had reached a higher plane, they also had something in common with those in the lower realmtheir attention was also so focused on their interests or concerns that they failed to see Jesus.82 Finally, George Richie was taken near a final place that he described in the following words: And I saw, infinitely far off a city. A glowing, seemingly endless city, bright enough to be seen over all the unimaginable distance between. The brightness seemed to shine from the very walls and streets of this place, and from beings which I could now discern moving about within. In fact, the city and everything in it seemed to be made of light, even as the figure at my side was made of light.83 Soon the vision faded and Richie said, I knew that my imperfect sight could not now sustain more than an instants glimpse of this real, this ultimate heaven.84

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This reminded me of a remarkable vision that Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon beheld at Hiram, Ohio, February 16, 1832.85 This entire section should be read and digested to get a better understanding of the vision. In effect, they saw that in the after-life people were rewarded according to their works and the intent of their hearts. Joseph and Sidney saw that all who lived in mortality would achieve a kingdom of Glory except for a few called the Sons of perdition. These kingdoms would differ as the stars differ from the moon and the moon differs from the sun. In the highest kingdom, the Celestial Kingdom, will reside all those who qualified to become joint heirs with Christ and posses all the power and glory that God and Jesus Christ have. They will be worthy to have the direct ministration of the Father and the Son in the Eternal world. The Terrestrial Kingdom will be inhabited by the honorable men of the world who rejected the testimony of Christ in the flesh, but afterward received it. The Telestial Kingdom will be reserved for those who received not the Gospel of Christ, neither testimony of Jesus, but did not deny the Holy Spirit. These are they that shall not be redeemed from the devil until the last resurrection. I could not help but notice the similarity of the things George Richie observed in his guided tour with Jesus and the vision of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon including an awareness of the ultimate glory of the Celestial Kingdom. There is not just a heaven or a hell, but many different rewards for man based on what they merit based on their choices in life and their works. An Interesting Experience I will share with you now an experience of one of my early clients. It took place in 1975. By this time, this client had had a lot of the Feeling Therapy experiences and was doing a lot of his own work at home in addition to the work being done at the clinic. He came in one day and said that he finally knew why he had had suicidal feelings off and on for much of his life. He had recently had a deep feeling session in which he relived his birth. The experience was so meaningful that he wrote it down in detail. With his permission I present it now as he wrote it: Im aware. But less aware than I was. Darkness has me in soft folds. Of what? A gentle rhythm moves me, and presses me. It stops and starts like a delicate wave that rocks, and then is gone. Suddenly Im anxious. I dont understand whats happening, and want it to stop. I know there is a reason, but I cant remember it. I only remember achange. Something is leaving me. An absence, profound and intense, is tearing at part of me, tearing apart from me, taking what we had away. We who? I feel what incomprehensible confusion can grip a person. I?We?They?feelings, not words tumble through my whole being as I know what separateness is. I-We becomes I-They suddenly enough to

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shake my soul with terror. I am I. They are They. We are parting, are parted. I am alone. Alone in a churning blackness that seems to be swallowing the remnants of my past. I hurt. Direction pushes at the pain I feel. One part of my mind twists under the stress. I cry out soundlessly. They are gone, and I can feel where they were. I can vaguely feel that they are somewhere. But the fact that I cant be with them causes me to be tremendously sad. As if separation is not enough Im increasingly pressed and pushed by sluggish waves that surround me. It seems as if I will be crushed. Im going somewhere. But where? I cant see. Panic closes around me as I realize that I cant see anymore. The lack of light grows deeper as I sense the loss of my ability to see. I cant even see where Im going: And wherever Im leaving isnt in view either. I have no past no future to see. All that is left is now. I know I am going from somewhere old to somewhere new. I want to go, but what is happening to me? The thought that this is right is calming, while the closeness, the narrowness my existence is becoming causes agitation. Shuddering with the cross purposes of the paradox Im caught in, I want to go back. I cant. I can only go ahead. I feel deserted and desolate. No one will help me go back. Im helpless, trapped. The only back is ahead. No, I can never go back. Where Im going is different than where Ive been. But something ahead touches a place that is afraid. My aloneness makes me want to clamour for someone to come be with me. Yet I am bound by despair. No one will come, can come. I writhe, wanting release from anguish, and there is none. A heavy lump in me drags me down. No, Im being pushed and twisted, not dragged. Fighting does no good. I have to get out. Of what? Its dark and I cant see. I can resist some of the pressure, just some. My arms are pinned, and cannot move. I flex and arch my back slowly. I move the only way my confinement will allow, ahead. I can feel the softness slide by my face as I push with my feet. The yielding warmth beneath my feet presses around my bodys length like woven steel. It hurts. I fight to push away the satin bonds until I tire. The pulsing pressure goes on, but I cant. I cant make it swells in me and threatens me with complete entrapment. Again Im anxious. My aloneness, separateness, helplessness mount into despair, despondency and finally I surrender. For some reason the tightness eases and I am suspended in warm nothingness. Occasional spasms taunt me, but I dont care. I am too tired to care. Physical apathy drifts with me and I am caught in a stupor. I dont care what happens. I sleep, let the blackness swallow me. Nothing matters. I didnt make it. I awake to the pushing and twisting and sense my own surprise at being awake. Consciousness seems strange, and I hate sit, Along with the squeezing, confusion washes over me and I remember leaving the good I had for the pain searing me now, the company for this isolation, the fulness for this emptiness,

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the love for this abandonment. The only thing I can do is get out of here and do whatever has to be done to get back some of what is lost, or maybe, more. This is the closest I am aware of that any of my clients have gotten to a remembrance of missing the companionship of loved ones in the spirit existence. I have, on the other hand, been with clients innumerable times where their experiences bespoke of a mortal state that seemed more spiritual than mortal. It doesnt take long, in this healing work, to realize there is an underlying intelligence that dwarfs the conscious awareness in all human beings. There is a moral rectitude that is revealed in all men, as emotional garbage is systematically eliminated. There are many encounters with a being of light that is recognized as Deity. They experience the love of God that is so empowering that they resolve never to do anything that might keep them from enjoying that companionship through the eternities. They seem to have an understanding and judgement that is awesome and other worldly. When a client is in the peaceful and contemplative stage of a session I direct any question one might pose to me (out of habit) back to them for answering. I have yet to find one that does not answer right on target their own query. I believe the time will come when a greater interchange will take place between mortal beings and those on the other side of the veil. 9. Satan Bound for a Thousand Years I have known for many years that Satan was to be bound for a thousand years and that that was to take place during the beginning of the millennium, or the final thousand years of the earths mortal existence and before it's becoming a glorified habitation for celestial inhabitants. I never thought much about it, however, until I was heavily involved with the Deep Feeling work. I remember a number of clients saying that they knew how Satan worked. If he can get a person to become neurotic or psychotic, he would not have to concern himself with them and could go on to the work of crippling others. Once a person is greatly troubled or lost in insanity, they lose so much of a sense of direction and productivity that they cease to be a force he need be concerned about. The main way Satan captivates someone is very subtle and clever. He apparently decided to put his main effort, in the beginning, to bringing down men. He encouraged men to believe that it was not cool or manly to have tender feelings; it was not good to show ones tender emotions or people would think them weak and unmanly. As a result, men in large part resist shedding tears. They feel that they need to show a macho front to the world. Remember the dialectic principle, in order to be strong one must be able to feel his or her weakness.86 In our society and most others, it has been acceptable for women to show their weaknessesnot the men.

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As a Family therapist I have noticed, in my counseling sessions, that men have lost so much because of their dedication to not showing weakness. To appear to be strong they have become weak. It seems to me that the women are usually the strength in the family. It is now becoming more apparent every day that Satan is now putting a lot of effort into getting women to act more like men. Hardly a day goes by that women are not being glorified as being butt kicking karate experts and assassins on television. Women have been seeking parity with men for a long timeand that is a worthy goal in most ways; however, they need to remember that there are many things about men that the men need to change, and not the other way around. Whatever styles or habits women have, has resulted in them outliving men by about seven years. That gap is narrowing more, as women act more like men. For example, as women smoke more, they are dying closer to the same rate as men do, and the rate of women in prison is increasing. Another way Satan captivates someone is to encourage that person to avoid experiencing uncomfortable feelings to such an extent that they eventually lose the advantage that an intact sensory system gives them. He conditions them by offering pain relievers as reward to cover any discomfort they might experience. The more skilled one becomes at avoiding the natural pain of mortality, the greater the unprocessed pain becomes that resides in the "pain pool" waiting to finally be attended to and released. The more pain one has accumulated in the pain pool, the greater the need for more powerful pain killersand he has an arsenal of deadly [literally] pain killers at his command. One gradually becomes enslaved and owned in a sense by him. Fortunately, in spite of the power of Satan to enslave, the power of Christ to free is infinitely greater. Of course the trick is to know that and take advantage of His free offer to any one in need. Satan has such flawed tools as lies, false beliefs, unrighteousness, hate, pride and such strategies as murder, rape and licentiousness to accomplish his goals. Such things as only appeal to the natural man or the unreal self. But man is more real than unreal and more motivated by truth, love and high ideals. He is more spiritual in the core of his soul. And, thus a better bet to take the high road, under ordinary circumstances, when the choices are placed before him and he understands. The Revelation of St.John the Divine In the Book of Revelations it says that Satan will be bound for a thousand years and will deceive the nations no more until after thousand years, when he must be loosed for a little season.87 This revelation is written in metaphorical fashion. John the Revelator used words like chains, bound and loosed to describe the millennial thousand years in which Satan would have no influence. In the first place, it is not Gods way to restrict any ones agencyincluding Satan. If anyones agency is restricted it will be by his own doing, or other men, but not God. The Book of Mormon adds some clarification here. In the first Book of Nephi, Nephi, speaking of the last days and the final triumph over Satan, said:

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And because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power; wherefore he cannot be loosed for the space of many years; for he hath no power over the hearts of the people, for they dwell in righteousness and the holy one of Israel reigneth. But, behold, all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people shall dwell safely in the Holy One of Israel if it so be that they will repent.88 This clarifies that Satan is bound in that he has no power over the hearts of men because of their having repented and living righteously. Once again, my acquaintance with the potent power in repentance to heal helped me to see that the methodology to bind Satan anytime, including the millennium, has already been set up. Before Satan is bound for the millennial thousand years, a great physical cleansing will take place in which at least two thirds of the earths inhabitants will be eliminated, by plagues, famine, pestilence and war.89 If the cleansing destruction were to come today, that would still leave around two billion people to be healed and made impervious to the influence of Satan and his followers in order to meet the condition of Satan being bound, having no power over the hearts of men. My Understanding Enlightened I have taken the fulfillment of prophecy of the last days as a matter of fact. Having been aware that the fulfillment of prophecy has been going on since the beginning of time, I have noticed with interest the ongoing fulfillment of prophecy in our time. Of particular note, have been the gathering of Israel and the return of the Jews to Palestine. Prophecy is being fulfilled as I write these words. The Jews created the State of Israel in 1948 after the British withdrew from their role as Protectorate of the region, and the Jewish people won the right in a war with the Palestinians. The world is becoming increasingly more wicked. The current conflict with Muslim extremists or terrorists is setting the stage for the final conflict that may very well bring about the millennial conditions that are described in scriptural prophecy. While Satan is working hard to disrupt and defeat Gods plan for the exaltation of His faithful sons and daughters, God has not been sleeping nor is he dead. There are ample signs that he has been laying the groundwork and building the foundation of His eventual triumph over evil. His errant children are also laying the foundation of their own demise, if they fail to join forces with the eventual winning team of the Lord. There are now devastating plagues around the world caused by people failing to live the laws of moral behavior that He has made known to man. There is famine and continual wars demonstrating amply mans failure to take care of himself without the aid of a higher power. The time is not far off for a need of a complete and effective healing to take place to prepare a world, described in scripture, as a time of peace, free from Satans influence.

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Since most of us may have little influence over wars, pestilence and famines, I will now direct myself to the area that we all can and should address ourselves to. That is the emotional, social, and spiritual health of the human racethose that will survive the physical cleansing. It has been my understanding that Brigham Young once said, that when the great millennium of peace comes it will first take place in the hearts of individual men and women. From there it will spread to spouse and family and from there to neighbors, neighborhood, town and city; and finally to county, state and country. Until it fills the whole earth. It will all depend on mans ability to heal and render himself totally uninterested in buying into what Satan is selling. Actually Satan will not be able to give away his wares to anyone. That will constitute his being boundand that to last for a thousand years. The Lords Way By now I understood to a greater extent the healing power of the Lords way. When that awareness was applied to the binding of Satan, I could see how it could be done and in a timely manner. Reason with me for a moment. Once one person has been truly cleansed and purified, he or she is free from current and historic emotional pain of any kind. Therefore, there is no need for Satans pain killers. That person is in total contact with who he or she is and feels the reality of his or her own strength. Satan has no power over that person. From my observations, I noticed the following changes in such a person: First, they are more real; second, they feel their own strength; third, they are more dedicated to living true principles, that is truth and right guides their actions; fourth, they are more feeling and thus more caring. As such they want to help others and their motives are pure; and fifth, they are now intuitively aware of how to help and know when one is ready for that help. All of this put together will play something like the following: First, a person cleansed and purified will help someone else and that person will help someone else who will help someone else and so on. Each of those helped will help someone else and all without concern for payment. The payment is inherent in the deed. I believe the healing will first take place in a family; spouse helping spouse, parents helping children, children helping friends. Then spreading to neighbors helping neighbors. I know that this contrary to the current thinking about mental health work as it is currently being done; however, Gods way has often differed from mans way. Think about it though, there could never be enough professional therapists created to cure two billion people in a thousand years let alone fifty or a hundred years, using current methods. And consider that only a small percentage of the current practicing therapists would know how heal with the effectiveness that I am describing. And this is not to speak of how many people could afford to be treated at the present cost per

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hour by a profession therapist even if the sessions were effective. I think the Lords plan is worth looking into. The Lord is a master builder. Between Him and His Father, worlds without end have been created.90 He knows the art and science of building. He takes great care in laying a solid foundation for any of his works.91 He also supervises the progress and development of his works to make sure of the quality, durability and sureness of the final result. He also is conscious of the timeliness of completion. All you have to do is notice the careful preparation taking place from the beginning to the end of construction. It seems as though no detail is too small for His attention. For example, sometime between the year 600 B.C. and 592 B.C. the Lord commanded Nephi to make some small plates in addition to large plates he was making to contain the history of his people. The small plates were to contain an account of the ministry of his people. Nephi said of these plates, Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose I know not. He continued also to state, But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words92 Sometime prior to the publishing of the Book of Mormon in 1830, Joseph Smith let Martine Harris take 116 pages of the manuscript that contained the temporal history of Nephis people contained in the large plates of Nephi. Those pages were lost or stolen. There was concern that whoever stole the manuscript would alter them and falsely claim that Joseph was a fraud when the pages did not read the same as the original but true version. Thus, it was decided not to include those pages in the finished Book of Mormon. They could do that because the small plates containing the ministry of the people covered the same time period. The Lord is truly on top of things and you can be sure his timetable, though not known in specifics by man, will take place on time and in the manner prescribed by Him. I am becoming more aware everyday of the Lords hand in preparations taking place to bring about and lay the foundations for His millennial reign. I believe many people are aware they are to take or are taking part in this process. I also believe that there are many people completely unaware of the part they are playing and yet are in fact doing a great job. Just think, if each person, healed of their mental emotional and even physical hurts, would help heal just two people and those two people each help heal two others and so on, what the results would be. By geometric progression, one heals two, then, 2 heals 4, plus 8, plus 16 plus 32, plus 64, and so on. If six months were one generation of healing, it would only take sixteen years to heal two billion people. If one year was given to each healing, it would only take thirty-two years to heal the same number. I know this may to be a foolish exercise, as there are many variables to consider in the healing of a world. Please consider, however, a prototype of the millennial healing. It took place in about the year 33 A.D. at the time of Christs crucifixion and subsequent resurrection in Jerusalem. There were cataclysmic consequences experienced in North, Central and South America of a degree reminiscent of the predicted destructions preceding Christs long awaited Second Coming.

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These events are recorded in the Book of Mormon.93 There was widespread destruction in all the land. Great cities were sunk in the depths of the sea. Other cities were covered over by upheavals of the land. Cities were burned and shaken to destruction by the forces of nature that were unleashed on the land. One seemingly insignificant observation was made by the survivors that I found quite interesting. In the account of this catastrophic event it was said that the rocks were rent in twain; they were broken up upon the face of the whole earth, insomuch that they were found in broken fragments, and in seems and in cracks, upon all the face of the land.94 This caught my attention mostly due to the fact that when I was taking an Archeology class at the University of Utah from Charles Dibble, around 1952 or 53, we were shown pictures of this having happened. This story was told in stones for future generations to read. Following this destruction, which only took about three hours,95 there was a visit made by the resurrected Christ and he administered to the people. The account of that visit bares careful attention.96 Christs visit was followed by two hundred years of peace and the influence of that visit is felt to this very day.97 Back to our earlier discussion about other variables. The work of helping another person heal takes knowledge, availability, and commitment, The hard work, however, is the responsibility of the one being healed. They have the burden of their own pain and will forever, regardless of how it is obtained. They do need support, especially in the beginning. But as their healing gets under way, they become more knowledgeable and skilled as they go and can do much work without outside help. They become less and less dependent. When we do work for and with those we care about, no sacrifice is too great. The availability can be no greater than with those we live with. And the rewards of healing are experienced in no greater amount than by those we love and care about. We must also recognize that reaching the goal of universal mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing that we discussed, started with one person and was limited to helping only two others. In reality, the Lord is preparing literally thousands perhaps millions that have and will begin the process of healing through repentance and on the Lords timetable. He will make his will known to his Prophet and the leaders of his Church when the time is right and the people are ready. In the meantime the foundation of his work will go on. One added thought, there is nothing like destruction and cataclysm to prepare one for repentance and being open for healing. 10. Understanding and Healing Same Sex Attraction In my line of work I have come across many different types of problems. Problems that have truly wreaked havoc in the lives of people. I believe there have been few problems that have caused as much anguish as those caused by gender identity mix-up and same sex attraction. Once I was in a conversation with a young man who was gay[quite a misnomer]. During the conversation, the young man said that what he liked about being with a same sex partner was that they were so much alike. He said, with obvious satisfaction, that they thought alike. They liked doing the same things. They were of

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one mind in their sexual desires and practices. Then he said, with emphasis, but with a woman it is hassle, hassle, hassle all the time over everything. That conversation stayed with me a long time. I thought to my self that if the Creator had wanted to he surely could have created a unisex being. If so, then why not? It might certainly have resulted in less conflict between the sexes. Of course, eventually I decided that if God created male and female he must have had a good reason. Over time, I became increasingly conscious of the many reasons and in the process gained an even greater respect for the colossal genius of the Creator. One doesnt have to be around a member of the opposite sex very long before noticing that they are different. They are not only built differently (so as to not be mistaken), but they are also different emotionally. The differences seem to go deeper than just being raised differently or being acculturated differently. I have seen boys that wished they were girls and girls that wished they were boys. Even dressing like the wished for gender and living the life of the wished for gender, could not alter the reality of who they were deep in their core, I have seen some mannish ladies that inspite of all they did to squash their precious femininity they were not quite successful. I also saw many effeminate fellows that still had signs of their masculinity that could not quite be overridden by feminine identification. Inspite of the many variations and manifestations of this problem, they all have in common the fact that they dont feel at home in their own skin and dont feel at home in a male-female sexual relationship. Although there are many who claim to be bisexual, everyone I have ever asked have admitted that their preference was still same gender. Curing dysfunctions of this nature has seemed to be particularly difficult to do, as mentioned in the previous part 6. Curing the incurable, as they have been associated with the other problems also said to be incurable: Problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction, pedophilia (those who are sexually attracted to children as sex partners) and other various character disorders. Actually the only ways in which these disorders are alike is in the fact that they are all feeling disordered and have been considered incurable. It is thought that the most that can be hoped for is control of symptomatic behaviors There are several factors that play into the difficulty in curing character-disordered people. One is that the origin of the disorders started so early in their childhood that they generally do not remember a time when they did not have, to some degree, some symptoms of their problem. At this point I will, for the purpose of this discussion, focus on same sex attraction. Most clients, with this problem, that I have been associated with do not remember a time when they did not know that they were different. The choices they made to arrive at their problem state were not remembered. Most say that if they made a choice they would not have chosen to be gay. The symptomatic thoughts and behaviors are experienced as being pleasurable even very pleasurable. The greatest pain they feel is related to their behaviors not being accepted as normal. They spend the majority of their childhood and youth hiding what they really are from others. Some actually come close to pulling it off. On the outside many succeed in being accepted as what they pretend to be, however, they

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all fail on the inside. For some, the most important day for them comes when they finally find out that there are many others like them out there. It is an even greater day when they make a meaningful contact with someone that shares similar feelings. And an even greater day when they finally accept who they are and become an active partner and participant in the gay culture. In reality, by this time their best days for healing have passed themthe days when they were most uncomfortable and wished most earnestly for change. By this time, they have usually had many times when they were turned on by someone of the same sex. That turn on felt so good that they had little choice but to think that they were in love. Some of the current thinking, in respect to the creation of homosexuality in males, is related to the notion that not having a healthy, positive identification with a male figure while growing up, sets them up to be attracted to a male that might stir this need up. By the same token, there were many confusing experiences in which they felt quite comfortable, in a social sense, with members of the opposite sex, but repulsed by the notion of a sexual relationship with them. Some theorizing has taken the direction to propose that homosexual men have had too much mother along with not enough father and identified with her feminine traits, but were turned off to the idea of sex with their mother. It is not very hard to see why a person could come to believe that he or she was just born that way and that that condition, as such, was incurable. And to believe that their only choice was to either white knuckle (control) or to give in and accept their condition. The Lord has made it known to prophets that the symptoms of character disordered people (rape, illicit sex, stealing and lying, etc.) are sins. And also has prescribed repentance (deep feeling) as the treatment of choice for these disordered behaviors. In the process of doing feeling therapy, it eventually became obvious that if people with same-sex attraction were considered feeling disordered, then that would affect the likelihood of repenting. Repenting of course means to feel deeply, and without feeling deeply and completely, cure would naturally not be possible. If same-sex attraction was inborn and it was really impossible to change, no matter what was tried, then indeed, their breaking of Gods laws governing sexual behavior of same-sex partners could not be considered sins. But then if God expected a person to be something that was impossible to be and for that person to live a life of sexual behavior that was impossible to live, by his basic nature, their God would have to be a very wicked God, or at the very least a very nave or sadistic God. But God is neither cruel, nave or sadistic. I have observed the gradual dismantling of same-sex attraction through the deep feeling process that God has called repentance. Not once, but on numerous occasions. The process works as well on this disorder as for the numerous other disorders that the human family is subject to. I have seen the many factors that have played a role in the development of samesex attraction. And recognized the many choices that are made, and long forgotten, that result in such a condition coming about. More importantly, I have seen the symptoms change as pain was accessed and released. I have seen the mal-adaptive defense structures dismantled in an orderly,

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effective and safe way as healing progressed. I have also seen the progress interrupted when the healing process was interfered with. The healing is amazing and right on target when allowed to progress without undo outside influence, however, facilitating help and support does seem to be very helpful. I believe that one cannot see or feel the change from same-sex addiction (for it is an addiction) to a state of relaxed attraction to the opposite sex, where experience is exaltedly fulfilling yet not compulsive, without knowing that same-sex attraction is not the normal condition and can be corrected. What a revelation to know that same-sex attraction is not incurable. To know that God is still God and that he loves all his children and has provided a way for all his children to be made pure and eligible to share in all the blessings of their rightful inheritance as His children. It is wonderful to know that eligibility for that inheritance is the same for all and that the way has been prepared for its accomplishment. Repentance works for all and utilizing the process is accessible to all.

Notes
1. Noyes, Arthur P., M.D., and Kolb, Lawrence C., M.D., Modern Clinical Psychiatry. Sixth Ed., W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, Pa. 1963, p. 40. 2. Ibid. pp. 46-55. 3. Ibid. p. 49. 4. Ibid. pp. 44-45. 5. Ibid. p. 52. 6. Ibid. p. 52. 7. Janov, Arthur, Ph.D.,The Primal Scream. Sixth Laurel printing, Dell Publishing Co. Inc. New York, NY, 1975 p. 56. 8. Ephesians 4:26. 9. Joseph Smith's "New Translation" of the Bible. Herald Publishing House, Independence, Mz. 1970, p. 491. 10. Ephesians 4:31. 11. Isaiah 55:8-11. 12. 1 Cor. 1:25. 13. 2 Nephi 4:34. 14. D.& C. 1:19. 15. D.& C. 7-9. 16. Janov, Arthur, Ph.D. The Primal Scream. Sixth Laurel printing, Dell Publishing Co. Inc., New York, NY, 1970, p. 412. 17. Guralnik, David, B. Ed. Webster's New World Dictionary. 2nd College Edition Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1982, p. 389 18. St. Luke 17:33; 9:24; St. Matt. 10:39. 19. St. Matt. 5:44 20. Eccles. 7:4 21. Eccles. 7:3

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22. 2Cor. 7:10. 23. James 4:9-10. 24. Gen. 28:12-14. 25. Numbers 12:6. 26. I Kings 3:5-15. 27. I Samuel 28:5-7. 28. Joel 2:28. 29. Joel 2:30-31. 30. St. Matt. 2:12. 31. St. Matt. 2:13. 32. St. Matt. 2:14-15. 33. St. Matt. 2:19-20 34. I Nephi 1:6-13. 35. I Nephi 1:14-15. 36. I Nephi 1:4. 37. I Nephi 1:16. 38. I Nephi 2:1-2. 39. I Nephi 3:2-3. 40. I Nephi 7:1-5. 41. I Nephi 8 42. I Nephi 8:3-38. 43. I Nephi 10:17-19. 44. I Nephi 11:1. 45. I Nephi 13:12-42. 46. I Nephi 14:28-30. 47. Smith, Lucy Mack, History of Joseph Smith. Ed. Preston Nibley, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Ut. 1958, pp. 43-45. 48. Ibid. p. 47. 49. Ibid.. pp. 48-50. 50. Pratt, Parley P., Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt. Ed. By his son, Parley P. Pratt, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, Ut. 1980, 158. 51. Ibid., pp. 159-164. 52. Janov, Arthur, Ph.D., Primal Scream. Dell Publishing Co.Inc., New York, NY. 1970, p. 12. 53. Ibid. 54. Hart, Joseph, Ph.D., Corriere, Richard Ph.D., Binder, Jerry, Ph.D., Going Sane; An Introduction To Feeling Therapy. Delta Publishing Co., New York, NY. 1975, Preface ix. 55. Corriere, Richard, Ph.D., Hart, Joseph, Ph.D. The Dream Makers: Discovering Your Breakthrough Dreams. Funk & Wagnalls, New York, NY. 1977. 56. Ibid. p. 101. 57. Gen. 39:1-23. 58. Gen. 40:1-23. 59. Gen. 41:1-7. 60. Gen. Chap.39-40. 61. Dan. 2.

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62. Dan. 1:16. 63. Dan. 1:17. 64. Dan. 2: 1. 65. Dan. 2:27-28. 66. Dan. 3;47-48. 67. Dan. 2:1. 68. Janov, Arthur, Ph.D., The Primal Scream. Dell Publishing Co., 1970, p. 279. 69. Dan. 4;33. 70. Dan. 4:34-37. 71. Ephes. 6:11-17. 72. D.&C. 38:7-8; D.&C. 67:10; D.&C. 101:23; D.&C. 110:1-2. 73. Ether 3:19-20. 74. Ether 3:21. 75. Ether 3:26. 76. Ether 12:19. 77. Richie, George G. M.D. and Sherrill, Elizabeth, Return From Tomorrow. Chosen Books, 1978, p. 15. 78. Ibid. pp. 48-49. 79. Ibid. p. 54. 80. Ibid. p. 54. 81. Ibid. p. 64. 82. Ibid. p. 71. 83. Ibid. p. 72. 84. Ibid p. 73. 85. D.&C. 76. 86. Ether 12:37. 87. Revelations 20:2-3. 88. I Nephi 22:26. 89. Revelations 9:13-18. 90. Moses 1:32-33. 91. St. Luke 6:48. 92. I Nephi 9:5-6. 93. 3 Nephi chap. 8. 94. 3 Nephi 8:18. 95. 3 Nephi 8:19. 96. 3 Nephi chap. 9-27. 97. Hansen, L. Taylor, He Walked The Americas. Amherst Press, Amherst, Wis., 1963. Ferguson, Thomas S. One Fold One Shepard, Olympus Publishing Co. Salt Lake City, Ut., 1962. Heyerdahl, Thor, American Indians in the Pacific. Rand McNally & Co. New York, NY. 1953. 98. Corsini, Raymond J. Immediate therapy in groups. G.M. Gazda (Ed.), Innovations to Group Psychotherapy. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield. Illinois, 1968, PP.15-41.

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Chapter 10
The Healing Process
"The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, of one inch, very arduous and humbling, and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be home," Wendell Berry Methodology I will, in this chapter, focus more on the process of the Healers Art. Some of what we cover may seem to be, or will be repetitious, however, repetition brings understanding and conviction. Some basic ideas first. With people generally, if they have emotional problems they will be suffering, in some degree from a feeling disorder. The only sure way to correct a feeling disorder is for the one so afflicted to learn how to feel again. That should not be so hard, since we all knew how to feel in the beginning. In order to learn how to feel again, one must acknowledge the possibility of being feeling disordered, or at least be willing to learn. The reason one might have a problem with this is that most people believe that they already feel and do not need to learn again. People that are in terminal stages of hard heartedness (feeling disordered) are often angry and so defensive that they wont allow others to be close enough to help them. There is, never-the less, one thing going in favor of their healing, and that is that they will go on suffering until they do learn how to feel again. Even the relief of medications, comes short of the complete satisfaction of cure when it is known to be available. Processing Pain Generally, to heal a feeling disorder, one needs a place to feel and someone to help themat least in the beginning. Usually habits have been cultivated over a long period time, of running away from or avoiding discomfort. Other times, a single traumatic event can result in a lot of pain being repressedsuch as rape, or experiencing an overwhelming loss. No matter what the cause, the cure will take place gradually by being helped by someone trusted. They need to change course and focus on the pain rather than to run. As they do this, in the measured way the body does, the pain will gradually be released in a safe way. The person involved will start feeling better and will be able, in time, to learn the art of engaging repressed pain. This, in turn, will result in freedom from suffering. Who can Benefit? For a few minutes, I am going to help you understand how to tell if you have need of help to become more feeling. We have already discussed the mental health problems that respond well to Feeling Therapy. But there are many folks with less serious problems that could
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benefit from the healing that result from Feeling Therapy. Perhaps, you might recognize one of the following: One, someone who chronically over does, or under does anything. For instance, someone who over eats or under eats, someone who over sleeps or under sleeps, or one who is over expressive or under expressive, etc; Two, one who uses a lot of superlatives, such as always, never, I hate this or that when referring to ordinary things they dislike. This denotes one who has historic pain that words do not convey the intensity of the pain they feel. Three, anyone who would be stressed to just sit and relax and just be. They seem to always need to be doing something. Four, one who seems to expect others to do things that they could more easily do for themselves. Five, those who are chronic care givers to those who would be better off doing for themselves. That is, those who enable others to become more dependant than they would be if they were allowed to learn from their own mistakes. Six, one who is most usually negative. Seven, one who is usually angry a lot and is easily set off. Eight, one who chronically acts much younger than they are. Most usually they suffer from arrested social development caused by early trauma. More of us have need of release from historic pain than we realize. That is, more than the self realizes, however, most other people can easily see that something is wrong. I believe I could safely say that all people need release of some pain. The rigors of mortality exact a larger price than any of us realize. I still believe that the benefits of mortality make the price we pay well worth it. Mortality moves us closer to being more like our heavenly parents and being able to associate more closely in the eternities to come. The price to pay is simply to live according to true principles, as we come to know them, and to keep the soul (body and spirit) free from stuff toxic to the soul by becoming fully feeling peopleand that, also as we come to understand. Some Tools To Help Us Now, once we decide to live a healing life, the scriptures give some basic tools to help us get there. Those tools have been known from early times. They are fasting, prayer and isolation. Fasting eliminates an eating defense and helps the feelings be more easily accessed. Prayer puts us in an attitude of openness that makes contact with feelings much easier. Isolation is something that has been used often by those who wish to get closer to the Spirit. Remember the experiences, already mentioned, of Jesus, the brother of Jared, Joseph Smith Jr., Spencer W. Kimball, to name a few, who sought isolation in mountains or some secluded place.1 Prepare in advance I believe, ideally, that people should be prepared in advance as to what to expect, in a general way about the process, so that the person engaging in the healing may choose voluntarily to do it. I believe, also, that in high stress times, much unnecessary and distracting stress would be eliminated by prior preparation. In addition, prior knowledge will help a person

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take advantage of special moments of opportunity. Those times when feeling has been brought close to the surface by chance, when the feeling could either cause a lot of damage, or be an unexpected moment of healing. For example, if a husband and wife were having marital problems they could be taught to use those moments when they are upset, to over-ride their inclinations to act out, against each other or silently by themselves, and instead choose to process their stirred up emotions on the floor. That skill would usually come easier after having had some experience with floor work. But you can see that their attitude toward unpleasant feeling moments would be changed for the better when they see and eventually are able to use them as healing opportunities. Choosing a Place to Feel I recommend to every person engaged in the healing journey, to find a place in their own home in which to do their processing. Ideally they should do it from the start, but that is not always possible or practical. The reason is that it is usually the most accessible and most quickly reached. Even more importantly, a person associates that place as their healing place and that facilitates the process even more. People that are into healing consider the place a sanctuary and almost sacred. As such, that should be a place that the healer owns. It should be a place where it is safe and you would not be bothered by the ringing phone or doorbells, or really anything that could break into your processing, except matters of the most urgent nature. I remember a lady client who was, with few words, able to put her children at ease concerning the times she was engaged in healing. She simply told them that she needed some time to be quiet or cry so she could feel better. Once they saw her emerge from a crying session with a quiet and observably pleasant countenance, they would understand, if not before. They would also be getting an excellent example, that is priceless, that could put them at ease in respect to doing some of their own healing as the occasion might arise. She told me that her children were able to get comfortable enough to handle unexpected callers by telling them that their mother was unavailable for a little while. Helpful Accessories It is a good idea to have a phone available at the healing place that can be fixed to not ring. The reason for this is that if you find, for some reason, that you are having some difficulty getting started, a call to a facilitating partner can be made for possible help in getting started. Of course you need to be comfortable on the bed or mat you choose to do your work on. You should have a blanket near just in case of chills: tissues, always; and a spare pillow to alleviate any reluctance to express yourself by knowing if you vocalized or yelled into the pillow it would disturb no one. It might also be helpful if you could play any music you find that facilitates in any way the accessing of feelings. More on Processing There must be many different ways to help one engaged in processing. The one I use the most is to help the person processing to relax. In the earlier sessions, I do the progressive relaxation from the toes working up by muscle groups to the top of the head. I have the

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processor tighten the muscles and then relax them so that they can feel the difference between the extremes of tension and relaxation. Eventually they will know how to instantly recapture the relaxation feeling at will and in any situation. It is virtually impossible to feel stress at the same time of being in complete relaxation. It will become a skill much valued and useful in their life. The skill of relaxing can be handy in many life situations. Most importantly they can get into processing more quickly and paves the way to doing their own work without outside help. The way I use relaxation is to make the entry into the automatic healing mode smoother and more gentle. I do not want the client to be startled suddenly. I encourage the processor to feel free to move or shift around in any way needed to relieve any pain or discomfort in their body. I dont want any body pain to distract the person from focusing on emotional feelings. I encourage the person to notice any thought, feeling, emotion, or any words, pictures or memories that might flash into his or her mindeven if for only a moment. I tell them to relax and let their own mind choose the issue to deal with. I tell them that they will notice what their mind has chosen because it will highlight the issue in some wayusually by the signal getting stronger, or more persistent. Then I encourage them to focus on that issue, feeling, or word letting it get stronger and stronger. As I notice muscle or facial movements that denote they are engaged in something I comment on their progress and encourage them to continue. I am careful not to suggest to them what they should feel or pursue. It is just possible that in standard therapy, some therapists inadvertently create multiple personalities in their client by suggesting that there are various entities in them responsible for their behaviors. They even get the client to give names to those entities. I dont want to take the chance. I give them permission to vocalize or to remain silent as they choose. I do let them know that the more they share the more I can help them get where they want to go. I often encourage them to breathe deeply, fully and regular. This helps them not to block by holding their breath, This also helps to keep them from hyperventilating and it can facilitate getting into their issues. It is important to watch for conscious or unconscious tendencies to block feeling, such as, yawning, swallowing, or holding ones breath. The helper must observe for any strategies that are used, either recognized or unrecognized, to avoid focusing. If the processor started to change subjects of processing frequently, the helper should help the person sensitively to focus rather than avoid. Of course, this does not apply at the beginning when they are still trying to find what their body tells them they are ready to work on. Once they are into what I call the automatic mode, it is important to watch for ways to gently help them move through some places where they may be partially blocked. Once, while working with a client of many months, I was surprised when she said that all she could see was black. This was very unusual for her. I felt impressed to ask her to search the blackness from top to bottom and side to side. I encouraged her to look for any differences in shades of darkness or in textures. Soon she was able to notice a place where the darkness thinned out some. Eventually she could see through the darkness and observe a house far off sitting in a field. I encouraged her to proceed to the house, which she recognized as being her own house as a girl. With more encouragement she went to the steps and up the steps into the house. From there up some more steps to the second floor down a long hallway and turned a corner to see her father sitting in a chair. She was frightened at what he was doing. He had

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molested her as a young girl causing much emotional harm. This was the cause of her temporary block. One, who helps another, gradually learns ways to be helpful. Since the client is totally conscious, they can help the helper a lot by telling them what they might do and how to be helpful. For the most part, the process is automatic and its probably better to do too little than too much. Of course, the processor has the ability to tune out that that is superfluous to his or her healing. The biggest help you give is your understanding of the healing process and your willingness to share it with those who are willing. The Healed Becomes the Healer Once, while on loan to the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, Utah, I met a fellow who was soon to be released on parole. He had been involved in the therapy offered there, related to the Inner Healing program that some inmates and I were doing. When this fellow was released on parole, part of the condition of parole was that he meet with me periodically. I was working for LDS Social Services at their offices in Richfield, Utah, just thirty-two miles from the prison. On his first visit, he told me of accidentally dropping a ranch gate on his toes. In his visit to the doctors office the Doctor issued a prescription for 30 Lortabs to take for pain. He said he knew at the time that he should have told the doctor that he had had an addiction to Lortab. Then he went on to say that within several days he had used all the Lortabs. He said he knew then that he had to be more careful. I tell this part of the story to demonstrate that he was not just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. Several months later he told me of the following incidents that I should like to share with you. I had previously had contact with his parents and a sister. His parents were taking care of his small children while he was in prison; so, I knew somewhat of his home situation. He told me that he now understood how he could help his children better when they went through the usual hurts and pains all kids are subjected to in growing up. He described one incident with his son when the boy came to him crying because of hurting his knee in a fall. When my friend saw his boy was not severely hurt he just took his boy in his arms and empathized with him, allowing him the time needed to give comfort and support. Soon his son jumped off his knee and was off to play. He said that formerly he might have tried to distract him and perhaps say something like big boys dont cry. He knew now not to create the damming tradition of stuffing his feelings because big boys dont cry. He then told of helping his sister who was about nineteen years old and recently married. She came to the home of his parents, where he was temporarily staying. She was in tears because her husband was put in jail for failing to take care of some traffic tickets. My friend asked his sister if she would like him to help her through these distressing feelings. She agreed. So he had her lay down on her parents bed and he had her relax and cry, He said that after about an hour she finished and in the resolution stage she observed with amazement how good she felt and could now handle what ever came. Then he told me he was given some news that really upset him. He thought that his father might die. It was such a concern that he decided to go into the mountains nearby where he

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found a grassy spot to lay down and he just worked out the feelings. In the Inner Healing program the inmates are taught to feel through their pain rather than act out. He did a good job of doing just that. Just Being There Helps Another thing you do for the person being healed is by just being there. It takes some courage to face ones demons, even when you know what they are, but often they are not known until allowed to surface. Remember the dialectic you have to feel your craziness in order to become sane, or the natural man must die in order to have a newness of life. There are many things difficult to face, but having a trusted person with you makes it easier to do. It gives one an added anchor to reality and safety that allows one to just let go and focus on the job at hand. I call your attention to the fact that the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane wanted Peter, James and John to be with him in His time of pain. I believe that He wanted this not only to have witnesses to pass on the knowledge, but also for the support and added strength that would afford him and the example He would be to them. I have had many clients say that it was a comfort to know there was some one there for support in case they might loose control and act out. Feel Rather Than Act Out As a matter of fact, the danger of losing control and acting out, when ones pain is touched off, is infinitely more likely when one is sitting or standing upright than being in the prone position. In the prone, even when one rages, when the pain is touched, I have never seen a person do anything more than scream or hit the floor beside them. Soon they get to the hurt underlying the rage and the healing moves forward until arriving at peace and resolution. At this point there is understanding and they know how to solve the problem in a good and thoughtful way. Learning to Give Up Control One of the major concepts underlying the feeling process is the dialectic principle in order to gain control one must learn to give up control. You will find that this is one of the most difficult things to do. Remember when we discussed the Council in Heaven, Lucifers plan revealed that he was the champion of unrighteous control. He wanted complete control over his spirit siblings under the guise of the assurance of our salvation. He is still trying to sell us on this idea. His inducements, offered up front, are hope to control our environment and manipulate outcomes. For instance, when we get in a tight situation there may be temptations to find an easy way out. We must always use the righteous alternatives that God has shown us. I learned, while growing up, the peril of the temptation to do the easiest, but not right way. While working as a casework supervisor for the Salt Lake County Welfare Department, there was an occasion when I had the responsibility of seeing to it that a lady on assistance received her welfare check. I had not gotten to it because of being distracted by other problems. I assured her it would be soon forth coming. A few days later she called and asked again for the

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check. I had again completely forgotten to have the check sent. I felt embarrassed and very stressed, especially since it was for the second time. For a brief moment I was tempted to tell the lady that there had been some breakdown in our computer system. This could get me out of an embarrassing situation and the just wrath of the lady. Fortunately, I had long ago decided that I had to take my lumps for mistakes made. So, I begged her pardon and frankly admitted that I had, once again, messed up big time and had completely forgotten to take care of her check and I realized this might have put her in a difficult situation. Then, in my own mind, I held my hands over my head and waited for the sky to fall in. To my relief, she remarked that she did need the check, but also understood my forgetfulness. To this day I still think that she would have seen through a lie. I know that this example is a small thing, but I believe the principle has larger applications. One of the scariest things is to be out of control, or to be in an out of control situation. It is hard to be married, or closely associated with a control freak. A control freak is someone who has to be in total control of others without being paid to do it or being authorized to do it. Being a controlling person immediately identifies a person that doesnt believe they have the inner strength or power to survive in a world where others are free to act for themselves. The person who must control others will soon, or eventually learn that they do not have control of anything. It is the reverse of "giving u p control to gain control. This principle is most easily seen in spousal or parental relationships. Spouses or parents need to learn how to relate with spouses or children in away that will respect their agency and right to make choices, yet be strong enough to hold them to be responsible for the consequences of their choices. Through the healing process of feeling, one will gradually learn the principle of giving up control, because the feeling process will not work without doing it. You will learn step by step, and as the control is relinquished the healing begins. As the healing progress the increased strength gained allows the healing person to feel safe enough to relinquish even more. I tell clients that they must use good judgment in deciding where, and when to give up control and to whom. They should trust their helper or facilitator and the helper must earn the trust of his client. They need to choose a safe place to feel. It is also important to understand that another word for giving up control is learning to trust. We should know in whom we place our trust. More on Processing In the beginning, while helping the client get into the processing or automatic mode, I encourage them to be alert and clear minded as they focus on the feeling or issue they will process. During the session, I look for any way I can help them focus and experience. Some things that I have found helpful is to encourage the one processing to look for details such as color, smells, textures and anything unusual in the scenes they are into. I ask them to talk directly to any person they encounter in the first person and to look directly at them as much as possible. This seems to help them deepen the experience. One client I had been working with was into a memory of when she was about sixteen years old. She was a lifeguard at a private sports club. Her boy friend was also a lifeguard at the same place. The memory she had was of her and her boyfriend doing some serious petting in a private place at the gym. Her conscious memory of that incident was that she had lost her virginity at that time. I urged her to focus and feel as much of that incident as she could. She

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had some difficulty at first, so I urged her more firmly. The result was that she soon saw that in fact she turned in such a way as to prevent the act from being completed. Because of her youth and inexperience she thought that as far as she went constituted the sex act. The result of this experience on this thirty-five year old woman was so strong that her whole attitude about herself changed. The change was so great that even her physiological functioning, where sex was concerned, normalized. It was amazing to both of us. After the main processing takes place, where the client goes through the hurt and eventually arrives at the resolution stage, it is important to take some time to let the client share what has just taken with him or her. One soon becomes aware of the amazingly healing journey the client has just been on. The client now understands much about him or herself and why they think and do what they do. I think that the verbalizing of their experience helps to solidify the gains made and increases the benefit to the client. Frequency of Sessions Ideally sessions should be done as dictated by the persons need. That could be one or more times a day in the beginning. I find that a client will find that after a session there is generally an elevated sense of wellbeing for several days or more. After that, it seems that the spirit is ready for further cleansing. That would indicate that in the first weeks after healing is begun, a frequency of at least two times a week for the first few months would be preferable. I have worked with many that have managed to continue their lives as usual and made good progress with sessions at a rate of once a week. The sessions may go on for many months or even in some cases for years. I recommend that a person should be an open, feeling person at all times and should see that as a way of life. I find that once one stops doing actual sessions, they will still notice that there might seem to be a need to have a session now and then to get rid of some residual tension that might build up. I find that though the feeling process (repentance) has the theoretical possibility of helping one reach a Christ-like perfection, in reality I know of no one who has reached that level. I heard some time ago, someone say that Joseph Smith said, that there would still be a lot of perfecting for most of us to do on the other side. I believe it. I know for sure that improvement in this can be immeasurable and well worth the effort and time spent. There is one caution I believe is important. I dont think that just because the healing has reached a level that borders on the miraculous, that one can be certain that there is no longer a need for further healing. One must be honest with themselves and the body or spirit will give you clues if there is still further need of healing. Any sign of a tendency to act out inappropriately is a clear signal that more work needs to be done. I know of such a case where one had marvelous healings take place and still committed serious enough offenses to be put in prison for many years because some of the deeper pains had not been resolved. Directions the Healing Takes The healing generally starts in the present and works back. The major problems in the present that might interfere with processing should be taken care of first, so the healing can be entered into in earnest. It will generally work back from present to past and from least painful to most painful. Feelings are more accessible in the beginning when ones pain is most

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obvious. As more and more pain is accessed and released, it becomes harder to find the remaining pain. The pains will also be stored and released in themes. For instance, loss may be experienced in a series of losses through out life, or physical hurts may be released in a series of physical hurts usually from present to past. Use of Music Earlier in the book I mentioned that after the tragic loss of my son I became more aware of the fact that music had a more powerful impact on me than before. I eventually used music to complete my healing. I found music that would touch off tender emotions and played it while driving to and from work. Work was only 15 minutes away from home, but by playing the tender music I generally cried to work and back everyday for months. Sometimes my crying became so intense that I feared ever being able to stop. My pain lifted about six months after Ronalds death and how long I continued the daily crying I do not remember. The amazing discovery I made over time, and is ongoing to this day (twenty-eight years after his death), is that my over-all ability to feel has increased and I am much more empathic than before and much more tuned into the Spirit. I have realized that crying serves two vital purposes: One, to free us of stress chemicals that are generated during hard times; and two, to help us be closer to the spirit by resonating in times of joy, beauty and truth. No wonder Satan would seek to harden our hearts. In feeling sessions I use music as a soothing background to facilitate relaxation. Also, I use music with words that match the feelings a client is dealing with at that time. In my work at the Correctional Institution, I found that inmates are generally more hardened feeling-wise and music is a big help in this event. The music used by the inmate facilitators on their fellow inmates had stronger beats and the themes of loss, love etc, were more pointed. It helped moved the work along nicely. Because of my work and experience with inmates, I now know that they are very treatable. This helped me understand that as feeling therapy is used more in prisons and Correctional Institutions the programs will move more in the direction of true rehabilitation and less to warehousing. The future will bring dramatic changes in the treatment of former offenders. I also predict that the inmates will become the instruments of their own healing. The cost will become much less than they now are by a staggering amount and folks that are today a drag on society will become a wonder and powerful resource to themselves and society as they return to mainstream society How it Works

The need for healing comes about because of unrighteous behavior and having false beliefs.l False beliefs are toxic to the spirit of man and as such they create unrest and dissonance between the body and spirit. The resultant disturbed feelings require that some action be taken. The choices are to get rid of that which is toxic, or to increasingly mute the sensory system. The way to spiritual sickness is surprisingly simple in conceptbehave and believe falsely and repress sensory information. The way of healing is equally simpleget rid of false beliefs, live true principles and unrepress painful sensory information. Repression comes from not

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feeling and feeling unrepressespaving the way of releasing spiritual toxins. Thus, repentance is the sure way to mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. To become truly healthy, it is necessary to clear ones self of any thing toxic to the spirit. The process in its simplicity is to become a truly feeling person and face and feel anything in the present as it comes and any thing from the past that was repressed for what ever reason. Though this is simple in concept, it is not so easy to do and requires help and a lot of courage. Though releasing pain is the primary healer, there are several other things that contribute substantially to the healing. One is the act of crying itself, as mentioned, that carries stress chemicals out of the body through the tears.2 And two, the fact that during the healing process the healing person is in a state of dual consciousness. This state is fascinating in that, even though the person is in an automatic healing process, in which he or she is reliving actual segments of life, the person is also observing the life replay from the view point of their current more experienced self. A person thus engaged really gains understanding and empathy for themselves and the decisions and actions they made based on limited knowledge and experience as a younger person. More on the Fruits of Healing I will share some more of the fruits of healing as I have observed them:

Reliving childhood makes for better parenting. It does, indeed, have a sobering and informative effect to relive childhood experiences and see as an adult how you felt as a child being reared by your parents. In reliving, one seems to be able to evaluate and see things from the point of view of the other person as well as your own. Even at that, the passage of time and the increase of wisdom have leavened your view. Empathy increases. Empathy is lost in the hardening process, so, it is natural that as the ability to feel increases ones ability to put themselves in the other persons shoes also increases. Rectitude increases. As one peals off the layers of hardness, a person gets closer to the bedrock and foundation of the soulthe spirit. That spirit was conceived and nurtured in love and wisdom and as such, living according to truth and light is the natural inclination of man. Memory increases. During the hardening process bits and pieces and even chunks of memory are obscured. As the healing progresses those bits and pieces and chunks are gradually restored. At the same time the pain connected to the memories is released. One is left with memories and no pain and this allows us to learn from our experiences. Lost memory equals lost learning. But as the memory returns free from pain, we regain the learning and that, after all, was one of the main purposes of mortal experience. Less subject to temptation. Freedom from pain and hardening renders us free from temptation. One thus cleansed and purified, whatever cheap pain killers Satan offers us, is of no interest to us. We become truly in control of our lives. What we chose to do with our lives on earth or in eternity will always be in harmony with God.

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Free of artificial chemicals to manage our moods. We wont need them because the internal dissonance that occasioned their need will be gone. We will have the full range of feelings to guide us since nothing good will be lostonly that which is toxic. This list could go on and on, but for now I will end this list with mentioning the fact that we will be better guided in our dreams and will be more in tune to be guided by the Spirit. Some Other Items for Discussion Dangers of the Healing Process

There are some who warn of the danger of doing deep feeling work and certainly there is some danger. Let me say from the start that it is far more dangerous not to do than it is to do it. All one has to do is read the paper, or watch the news on television to notice the carnage and general breakdown of the society of the world to see the price being paid for the ongoing assault to our sensitivities. It seems as though we are spiraling ever downward into the pit of depravity. Depravity that could only be possible with the hardening of our hearts. Murder, rape, divorces, sexual diseases decimating the strength of societies. Gender confusion, righteousness being called evil and evil being upheld with righteous indignation. The major danger in feeling work or repentance is not doing it. There are some cautions to be aware of, however. One is for a therapist to not get carried away with his or her own importance and take a client where they are not ready to go. Another is to think that any therapist knows better what the client needs than to trust the clients own built in ability to self heal. Another is not to purposely or inadvertently impart to a client ones own bias while they are in a receptive and teachable mode. It is true that it is a good time to share true principles, but we better be sure they are true and compatible with the clients own values. In short, a helper needs to lead, facilitate and support a person in his or her healing journey. A parting thought on this subject. Repentance is Gods therapy and He urges all mankind to do and partake of its fruits. Would he wish anything but the best for His offspring, His own sons and daughters? Would have us do this thing if it was truly not for our good. I think not. Feeling verses Hypnosis I have been asked at times if the healing process we are discussing has anything to do with hypnosis. As you know hypnosis has had a lot of publicity over the years and it is still being employed in numerous settings. It has been used in medical settings as an aid in some surgical procedures where the use of anesthetics is not advisable. It is used clinical settings as an adjunct to mental health treatment. It is used to assist in helping a client with weight problems or to stop smoking or to enhance self-esteem. It is also used to entertain people by getting people to do things that are seen as humorous to the observers. My answer to those who ask about hypnosis is yes, they are related. The objects of their attention are the samepeople. The minds and brains on which the magic is applied are the minds and brains of people and the mechanisms used are the same, but that is where the similarity ends.

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The philosophies on which they are based are quite different. In fact, they are the exact opposite of each other. For instance, in hypnosis the hypnotist is the focus of attention. In the feeling process it is the client that is the focus of attention. The hypnotist is generally directing the process and exercises more control. In the feeling process the facilitator assists using little or no control while the client sets the agenda. In hypnosis much of its effect comes from successfully separating the client from himself or herself. The effect can best be seen when the subject can be stuck with a pin and not feel it. Or the stage hypnotist can tell the subject that when a certain coin is dropped they would bark like a dogand they do. The underlying philosophy behind the healing process is to mend the separation between body and spirit. Its main object is to effect unification and harmony in the self, but also with truth, others and Deity. So, while there should be a place for both philosophies in the world as it now is, I expect the trend will eventually move more and more toward feeling and oneness and less and less to division and separateness.

Notes
1. Kimball, Spencer W., Ensign. Prayer, published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Ut. 1978, p.19. 2.Janov, Arthur Dr., The New Primal Scream. The Role of Weeping in Psychotherapy, Enterprise Publishing, Inc. Wilmington, DE., 1991, p. 321.

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Chapter 11
Whos Therapy is it anyway?
As we draw near the end of our journey of discovery, it would seem good to pause and reflect on the trip. At the end of a journey it is nice to look back and reflect on where weve been and let our minds recount the steps it has taken to get where we are. This will also help to strengthen the memory of the trip. It is that that is retained in the memory that will serve us for a lifetime. At the beginning of the book, I shared some of my background and qualifications to be your guide. I mentioned that I had both temporal and spiritual training that would fit me for the journey. We then reviewed some definitions of terms to help in our search for truth. Then I told you how I learned about a powerful and very effective means of healing mental, emotional and spiritual problems that became the object of our search. In chapter three, we looked at a number of healing experiences and became better acquainted with the mechanics of the process. Then in chapter four we recognized that the new therapy was related to the worlds oldest therapyrepentance. In chapter five, we searched the Old and New Testament scriptures and found that those sacred books confirmed that the new therapy and repentance share many of the same qualities. We then, in chapter six, went into latter-day revelations and found that they also gave strong support for that conclusion. Also, in chapter six, we learned more of the nature and qualities of the principles of Feeling Therapy and repentance. In chapter seven, we learned about the role of Jesus as our role model. In chapter eight we found that the experiences in our day also back up and confirm the notion that deep feeling and repentance are related and are both powerful means of releasing pain and bringing about mental and emotional health in man. It also adds increased understanding of the healing mechanics underlying the process. Chapter nine is used mainly to showcase the fruits of this healing process by discussing some things learned in the use of this healing method. We gained a better understanding of anger and how we can deal with it. We learned the same for suicide prevention. We learned why so many mental health conditions are considered incurable today and most of all we learned that many are in fact curable by this most ancient and enduring healing art. Chapter ten was used to explain the simplicity of the method and share some methodology for practical application.

Answering the Challenge

Is This Gods Therapy? In the preface, I set down some conditions that must reasonably be met in order to qualify as Gods Therapy. Those conditions were as follows: One, it must be the oldest. It has to have been available to man from his mortal beginning.

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Two, it must be the most effective. Cure will be recognized and be long lasting. Three, the process will cover the whole range of mental, emotional and spiritual problems. Physical will also be impacted. Four, it must work equally well for all people regardless of place of origin, race, age, and gender. Five, it must be available to all regardless of income or ability to pay. Six, healing is always for the better. Seven, healing is certain. When the effort is made it will always be rewarded with positive results. Review the Conditions Now let us review these conditions one at a time: Available to Earliest Man. The process was available to earliest man. We can make this assumption by the fact that the mechanism of healing is man himself. The process is built in. It is part of the design. The most natural thing for a person to do upon being hurt or experiencing a loss is to cry. Crying in itself is healing. Man also has the ability to choose and choice is an important part of accessing pain to release it. There have been numerous instances in which people in current times have stumbled on to the healing effect of crying and feeling deeply. We can only assume that that has been done many times in the history of man. The Old Testament gives testimony to the fact that repentance has been preached from the beginning and still appears to be the treatment of choice by God himself as indicated by Holy scriptures where ever they exist. The Most Effective Therapy. I recalled earlier how many years I prayed just to know that people could be helped with standard therapy. I have observed repeatedly that it only takes one time into the healing of feeling deep to know that something profound has taken place. Then, on top of that, behavioral changes seem to occur almost effortlessly on the heels of a deep feeling experience. When compared to the pallid changes that come with standard therapy, the differences between the two are astounding. The curative results of feeling deeply seem to be like putting on an old, favorite garment that is comfortable and easy to wear. But, unlike an old garment it never has to be sent to the cleaners, it lasts forever and you never want to take it off. The Process is a Cure All. I have a favorite saying and that is, The closer one gets to God, the more simple it gets. The antithesis of this is quite obvious and that is, The farther one gets from God the more complicated it gets. An example I use to illustrate this principle, is that when one is very close to God, one principle, and the mastery of it, to love, covers it all. If one fully loves, as the principle intends, all other commandments will automatically be lived. For, as God is love,1 we as his children, loving completely, would also be love personified. As such, we would do no wrong nor seek harm to anyone.

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To more fully highlight the principle, I observe that when the Israelites came out of bondage in Egypt they were first given ten commandments to guide them back to functioning in freedom. But when Moses came down from the Holy Mountain and saw the idolatry of his people he broke the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written by the finger of the Lord. In its place were commandments to govern almost every aspect of their lives. It was said that the Mosaic Law was given in its place to be a School Master to bring them back to God. Eventually, there were so many laws for the people that they became a burden rather than a blessing. They even told the people how many steps they could take on the Sabbath. I see this principle, in some ways, operating in the Mental Health field. There are so many mental health problems that the identification and many treatments of them are overwhelming. It takes many volumes just to list them. It takes many years of training in the best Universities to prepare a person to help ameliorate the problems. And even then, they dont do a very good job inspite of their good intentions. It is all quite easy to understand once you know what you are looking for. I believe it all got started with the advent of what is now called Western Medicine. Western Medicine is based on the idea that when something is broken it needs to be fixed. That idea was applied first to the healing of bodies and then to the healing of minds. Sadly, however, maintaining good health has been somewhat neglected in Western Medicine. Applying the repair model, used in physical health, to the treatment of mental and emotional health problems has caused the problem that we are now in. In physical health, the logical approach has been to find out what is wrong in order to fix it. I think that the logic has been carried over into the treatment of mental and emotional problems. In order to fix problems in Mental-emotional functioning, practitioners have thought they had to find out what was wrong. To do this they have become fixated on symptoms and thus, have written libraries of books just to describe the symptoms. They have further compounded the problem by following the Medical model in creating treatment approaches tailored to fit each mental and emotional symptom. And then have created even more volumes dedicated to treating the myriad of symptoms presented. This would all be fine if treatment results matched the apparent excellence of the diagnosis. But it doesntnot even close. The difficulty of recognizing this disparity is a problem. I think that one of the reasons this happens is that there is a high degree of symptom relief because of excellent pain management and the advent of psycho-tropic drugs to control symptoms. Through the experience of deep feeling healing, it has become known that the infinite number of symptoms come from the same sourcetoxins to mind and body. And this is where treatment focus needs to be. Diagnosis is made simpler by the fact that symptoms are not given center stage. It is made even more simple by the knowledge that any symptom or dysfunction is an indication that treatment is needed. Every problem has an

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underlying history that is specific to each person, though there are categories shared by all. Treatment is also simplified by the fact that the removal of toxins are effected simply by reversing the direction in which they are going. I call the process garbage in garbage out. Fortunately, people are designed to not only repress, but also to unrepress. When a person is not loved and respected and is ill treated and the person agreesgarbage in. When they are taught false beliefs and believe themgarbage in. When traumatic sensory events are repressedgarbage in. When enough toxic energy builds u p by repression, the symptoms emerge. The treatment goals are obviousget rid of the toxins, release the pain of repression. Feeling that, that was not felt previously does this. By doing this, the progressive sickness is changed to emerging wellness. The selfbody and spiritincreasingly moves to health, as the person learns to cooperate with the spirit in the healing process. It can not get any simpler than to know that lying, cheating, gossiping, molestation, rape, murder or depression, fears, phobias, low self esteem, literally any functional sin or problem can be effectively cured by employing the same treatment methodology. It is even more impressive, even marvelous, to realize that the methodology is easily learned by ordinary people. Even those being treated can eventually learn how to stop suppressing and even learn to unrepress unassisted. It should be no surprise then, that both the deep feeling process and repentance share the same characteristic of being able to cure a wide and extensive range of problems that beset mankind by simple means. It Works on Everyone. Since all people share the same ability to self heal, the problem that would come up would be that of communicating. And that only if the one to be healed and the helper did not speak the same language. Even then, much could be done with primitive communicating methods to help the one healing to get into the automatic healing mode. Then, the learning would be automatic as the healing progressed through the cycles to resolution and rest. Generally, the work would be done by someone who spoke the same language. So that would not be a problem. Affordable to All. Since the process is easy to teach and easy to learn, affordability would not be a problem. In the first place, once one has been through the healing process, that person knows better than any Ph.D. or M.D., who has only read about the process, how to assist another. In addition, going through the process seems to highly motivate the person to want to help others, Cash reimbursement for their help seems to be low on their wish and want list. Legally, helping someone in his or her own home without charge is not against the law.

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Always Positive Outcomes. Each session that progresses to the natural conclusion always ends with positive results. The main problem would occur in the event that the process was stopped prematurely, and then the person would only be uncomfortable and miss out on the relief of completion and revelation that would have to wait until the next time. That goes for the single session as well as the long term processing. On the long term, however, therapy not done will not save them from the ill effects of the pain they would still carry. I believe that even one session is worth doing for the benefits received. I also believe that any healing has positive long-term benefits even though the long-term outcomes are infinitely better if healing is continued without disruption. I once taught a lady in my neighborhood how to help her sister. The sister had substantial emotional problems; enough to require being hospitalized in mental institutions on several occasions. The sister lived in the mid-western United States. She came to live with my neighbor for a rest. My neighbor seemed to be like a magnet for her close relatives who needed help with problems including emotional ones. Her home was like a family hospital. My neighbor learned the healing process quite easily and she developed some skill. She was a natural. I consulted on a frequent basis to make sure things were progressing well. I attended a number of sessions to teach, get the process started, and help the neighbor develop skill in working with her sister. It seemed as though the neighbor, doing the healing work, was doing well. It also seemed as though the sessions, in content, were going well also. I was concerned, though, by the observation that the content rich sessions did not seem to end with the sense of resolution that I was used to seeing. Never the less the sessions continued to be conducted. I once read where it was reported that if a person had been on psychotropic drugs for over ten years there was a strong probability that the brain could be altered to such an extent that the deep feeling process would not work. I know that the lady had been on mind altering drugs for much longer than ten years. This was a concern to me, but I did not get the opportunity to research that point. One day my neighbor called to inform me that her sister had gone walking and ended up in a nearby neighborhood. The neighbors were alarmed by something the sister said and they had the sister admitted to the Psyche ward in a hospital in town. I made a visit to see how she was doing. At first my neighbor's sister looked quite well until she started talking. She greeted me with a wink and a "Hi, big guy, how are you doing?" She actually started flirting and this behavior was very uncharacteristic of our relationship. I deduced that the first thing done at the hospital was to give her a shot and then followed that up with ongoing medical care that consisted in part of psychotropic drugs. When I later spoke with my neighbor, I told her that it appeared that we had lost her sister to the system and there was probably nothing we could do about it.

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That later proved to be true, as she was released to the care of her husband and returned to her home many miles and states away. Her progress was kept track of through letters and phone calls. She seemed to be doing all right for awhile, but then she and her husband started to have problems again and she was put in a mental hospital. I was concerned about this because she once told me that she could get out of a Mental Hospital anytime she wanted to. I asked her how and she responded with, "All I have to do is to act sane for a while and they let me go." The passing time seemed short when my neighbor informed me that her sister had committed suicide. Another lesson learned at a terrible cost. If at all possible, a commitment should be extended to the client to care for and be available when needed, especially in the beginning. This would give them comfort and help to proceed with their healing. It is also nice for the helper to know that it would be rare for someone to grossly act out while engaged in a healing journey. Cure is Certain. As long as one stays in the healing process, the eventual cure is assured. The process works with almost mathematical precision. When the work is done, the results will be there. However, there may be some who will try to fake it, or some will drop out for some reason or another. Like mathematics the faked sessions or sessions that add up to zero will not produce cure. I personally don't think one could convincingly act being in a healing session. While working at the prison, there were some that liked the company of those involved in the "Inner Healing" program, but did not engage in any actual "floor work" themselves. They, of course, did not receive any healing. There were also some that tried to fake some sessions. I can assure you they did not fool anyone. We had a screening committee comprised of inmates and me to evaluate the progress or lack of progress of participants. They also recommended inmates for treatment. Of course we had no authority, but we could tell better than the Parole Board who was going to make it on the outside and who would not. This was due to the fact that we knew who had received effective treatment and who did not and the inmates on the committee lived with each other and knew how they behaved when no one with authority was looking.

Summary
Though the evaluation was short, I think you'll agree that some cogent observations were made. I believe that any therapy that meets the standards presented here must indeed be in the running for being considered therapy of the Gods, or God's Therapy. I personally am aware of a number of therapies that can meet most of the criteria we just went through, but I still would not call them God's Therapy unless they had the most important thing of all and that would be God's seal of approval. They must be acting with God's authority.

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An Important Observation Though this has been a most exciting journey and deep feeling therapy can certainly be characterized as being God's therapy because of it's close relationship to repentance; I have to admit that further explorations might be needed. It seems that the seemingly effortless and immediate healings of the blind, deaf and lame, that Jesus performed leaves more to be explained. That may take another journey and another book.

Notes 1. 1John 4:8.

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Chapter 12
Epilogue
An Important Story I will start this chapter with a story. It is not a very happy story, but never the less one that should be told. The one who lived it told it to me. It happened nearly thirty years ago, so I tell it from a memory that is dimming with the passage of time. I first met the lady of the story when she was referred to me by someone that knew I was doing some "deep feeling" work. She was about thirty-five at the time. As was my custom I discussed the principles of "deep feeling" work with her the first day and did a session the next day. The session went very well and she became convinced that she needed more of this treatment. She lived some distance away from me, so we were not able to do more sessions at the time. I kept somewhat up to date by the person that referred her to me. I found out later, from the same person, that she had gone to California to engage in Primal Therapy at the Primal Institute. The lady, during several phone calls, told me the rest of the story. On the first phone call she made, after she completed her treatment at the Institute, she said that she was very pleased and excited with the results of her treatment. She said that her therapist had been with the Institute from the beginning and he was planning to leave the program soon. That being the case, he decided to ignore a contract he had with Janov not to share any of the techniques used in the treatment of patients. He planned to teach her as much as he possibly could during their time together. She told me of one such bit of knowledge that I have already shared in this book. I remember no others at the moment. She told me that there were four or five other Latter-day Saints that were also in the program. They, of course, became closer to each other as their treatment went on. She said that there was some orientation meetings, held previous to treatment, in which the participants were warned that they might make some life-altering decisions as a result of the therapy. They were told that they might give up their religion, or job, or even spouse, especially if the spouse did not enter into treatment also. She said that not only did she or any of the other LDS participants not give up their religion, but were in fact even more committed to the Church than before. They even shared this information with the leaders at the Institute. I remember thinking of the logic of her statements. If someone's religion was not true they could understandably become aware of this and might consider leaving their church; however, if their religion was true, their convictions would naturally be strengthened. She and the other members of the LDS group were so excited with the results of their treatments that they decided, as a group, to go to Church Headquarters and share their experiences with the brethren (General Authorities). Sometime later she called me on the phone and this time was a much different lady with a much different spirit. She told me that she was in California and had joined with some Born Again Christians and that others in the "group" had independently found the Born Again Christians and believed them to be the true church. She encouraged me to

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join with them, I was stunned by the dramatic turn around. I asked her about the strong testimony she once bore to me about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. To this she said that the Book of Mormon is a nice book, but that now she had a strong and more precious relationship with Christ and that was more important to her. I was left to sadly think on this development for a long time This is one of the major reasons I am writing this chapterto hopefully keep others from making, what I consider, the mistake they made. I was left to guess about the experience they must have had on their visit to Church Headquarters. As an employee of LDS Social Services, I had been assigned to a special task in the Church Office building on numerous occasions. As a result, I knew that any one seeking an audience with a General Authority without an appointment had to first be interviewed by a staff member or someone from LDS Social Services. The purpose for that was to determine if someone else could handle the problem before referring it on to a General Authority. I believe, but this is only a guess, that someone that didn't have any idea what they were talking about saw them and they never did reach a General Authority. Whatever happened on that visit, they came away deflated and very disappointed. I believe that their experience also set them up to be overly impressed when they found someone that identified with their experience. Understanding the Principles of Power and Authority It is important that we understand something of the meaning and importance of power and authority. First, I will share with you a little experiment I engaged in. Some time after beginning this book I found myself asking a number of people this question, "If you only had a choice of having either power or authority what would you chose?" Before I give you the results of my query let me ask you the same question, "What would you chosepower or authority?" I was quite surprised to find that most chose power. What did you choose? Of course this question is only an exercise, but it is not meaningless, as you will see. Luke, the physician, wrote something on this important subject when he said, "Then he [Jesus] called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.1 John lends more to our understanding when he recorded the Savior's words. He said, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit shall remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, he may give it you."2 To have authority to act in Christ's name, one must be called by one having authority to make the call.3 They must also be ordained by the laying on of hands, so that a person does not take it upon themselves to imagine or "feel" they were called of God.4 Previous to this statement of truth John recorded the Savior's metaphor of the vine in which he said, "I [Jesus] am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." He continued, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of its self, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the

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branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.5 The lines of communication must be open. To have power and authority, one must be plugged into the source of all power and authorityChrist the Lord and God the Father. To be plugged in, one must be able to trace the line of authority back in an unbroken line to them. This was obviously intended when the Apostles met to find a replacement for Judas after he had committed suicide. Matthias was selected to fill the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve6 In addition to being able to demonstrate visually the unbroken line back to God, authority is designed to maintain the correctness and purity of His doctrine, for "straight is the gate and narrow the way that leadeth to life eternal.7 It is not part of the Lord's design to run a "rag, tag" organization that just anyone "off the street" could set up business and "claim" to act in His name. Authority comes from the top down. A caution to all who might have taken it upon themselves to claim authority from God, Jesus said, during His sermon on the Mount, "Many will say in that day [the last days], Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.8 Power is necessary to get things done. Power, however, while going hand in hand with authority, is easier to obtain than authority. It is true that one having authority to act in God's name will also have power, but that is not true of power. There are innumerable examples of power that is not vested with authority to act in God's name. Satan himself has done mighty miracles to capture the unwary. The point of this discussion is to note that if one had to choose between power and authority the choice should be authority without question. There is only one organization at a time on earth with authority to act in God's name. There are many people or groups that can demonstrate enough power to dazzle to attract the very elect,9 but cannot demonstrate that they also have authority from God to act in His name. Of course the one organization with God's authority will and must also demonstrate power. Power Power is needed and is manifest in many ways. Without it little could be accomplished. There is power in having the saving ordinances performed be ratified and accepted in heaven. There is power in receiving revelation, both personal and for the Church. There is power in prayer. The power that I particularly refer to now in this book is the power inherent in repentance. The power to bring about cleansing and purifying and bringing about what is referred to in the Book of Mormon as the "mighty change." The power of prayer and repentance are obviously available to every person on earth. It is up to the individual to utilize that power. However, the power to have the saving ordinances ratified in heaven is reserved to those having the authority of God to act in his name. Each person has the right to personal revelation according to his or her diligence in keeping themselves sensitive to divine inspiration. Although, once again, the right to receive revelation for the guidance and edification of His church is reserved for the prophet authorized by God to receive it.

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Since the power to heal through repentance is built in, every human being has the possibility of bringing the power of repentance to bear in their life. That depends on a person's way of life and on his or her choices. In order to gain Eternal life, that is to live with God and Jesus in the afterlife, in addition to the cleansing and purification of repentance, there also must be some saving ordinances performed by someone having the authority from God. I testify and bear witness that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church in this the last dispensation to hold that authority. It is the only church that can trace its authority back to God restored by those having authority to pass it on. In fact it is the only church I know of that even makes that claim. The claim that John the Baptist, Elias, Peter, James, and John and other resurrected beings actually appeared and passed on their priesthood keys to men in these days. Joseph Smith Jr. and others were actually ordained by the laying on of hands of these holders of the keysand witnessed. The principle of readiness There is a principle that I call readiness. My Mission President Asael Taylor Sorensen taught me this principle. He was a salesman before he was called to be the Mission President of the Brazilian Mission in 1953. He taught that we should tract with the idea that people become ready to learn and accept the restored gospel at different times. As such, we should not get discouraged when a person is not ready to accept our message the first time. He said that we would be bringing the message of the restoration many times and that they may be more ready then. He told us of recent converts that had been contacted many times and as many as twenty years or more before accepting the restored church and baptism. It took that long for them to become ready and thus receptive to the truths we had to share with them. Readiness entails a lot of factors to be in place for one to be open and receptive to accept the gospel and all the changes that would come about as a result of accepting that knowledge. Readiness is a concept that has application in innumerable situations. I might have you recall a few to clarify the principle. For instance, marriage, new inventions, different ways of doing things, different beliefs. The acceptance and even the ability to profit by the affore mentioned things depends to a large extent on where, when and under what circumstances they are presentedthey all affect readiness. Timing Readiness is related to timing. The concept of timing, as I will use it, is more easily understood if you liken it to the construction of a building. There are many steps in its construction. Each step has its own time and place and the steps must be done in their own order. The general contractor must know the proper order of each step and make sure they are done in a timely manner. A sound and proper building takes a lot of intelligence, work and also patience to complete. As I said earlier, Jesus is the general contractor that built this and other worlds under the direction of His Father. He is a master builder and understands what it takes to successfully create a world fit for man's habitation.10 It is ironic that the mortal Messiah was also a carpenter by trade as was his earthly father Joseph.

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Because of readiness and timing it requires close communication between Christ and His authorized servants to build his Kingdomfirst on earth and then in heaven.11 He does this through revealing His will to a prophet.12 The Lord has always known more than can be revealed to his people. He understands what they are ready for and when they are ready for it. He also understands the timing necessary to have a successful result. In a revelation to Joseph Smith Jr. introduced as "A commandment of God and not of man, to Martin Harris, given by him who is Eternal" the Lord said the following: And I command you that you preach naught but repentance, and show not these things unto the world until it is wisdom in me. For they cannot bear meat now, but milk they must receive wherefore, they must not know these things, lest they perish.13 Alma said: Now I unfold unto you a mystery; nevertheless, there are many mysteries which are kept, that no man knoweth them save God himself14 One thing we need to understand is that God desires us to know all "the mysteries of the Kingdom." King Benjamin, in his farewell address, said, Open up your ears that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view.15 He also informed us that, It is given to many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him. And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not hearden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.16 To understand all the mysteries of God it is necessary to be a feeling person, and be diligent in living the gospel to the level of your understanding. Then be patient in waiting on the Lord and His incomparable understanding of your readiness to know more and the proper timing for more to be revealed to His prophet. Some examples of the principles of readiness and timing will follow. The Law of Consecration The law of Consecration means that every member of the church dedicate all of their time, money, talents to the building up of the Kingdom of God. The church gives back

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only that that is needed to live and the rest are distributed to others that might have greater needs and not as many resources. In the fledgling Church of Jesus Christ, the law of consecration was lived, and members had "all things in common": And all that believed were together, and had all things common and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.17 The following is a more detailed account of the new members of the Church of Jesus Christ "having all things in common" (Acts 4:32-35): And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which they possessed was his own; but they had all things in common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. As the Lord commanded in former days, He also commanded in these latter days "to appoint unto this people their portions, every man equal according to his circumstances and his wants and needs."18 Apostle Bruce R. McConkie in his explanation of the Law of Consecration said that: an attempt was made in the early days of this dispensation to live the law of consecration in full. The vehicle through which the attempt was made to live the financial and monetary portions of this law was called the United Order. As then attempted, practice of the full law of consecration called for the saints to consecrate, transfer, and convey to the Lord's agent all of their property "with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken." (D.& C. 43:30; 58:35) They were then given stewardships to use for their own maintenance, with all surpluses reverting back to the Lord's storehouse. Because of greed, avarice, and the worldly circumstances in which they found themselves, the saints did not achieve great success in the practice of this law, and in due course the Lord withdrew from them the privilege of so conducting their temporal affairs. He further said, That the full law of consecration will yet again be practiced is well known. It is a celestial law, 'And Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself.' (D.& C. 105: 5) In this connection it should be remembered that man cannot

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live a higher law until he is first able to abide a lesser law; he will not consecrate all of his properties, unless he is first willing to consecrate a portion; and he cannot live the perfect law of consecration unless he first abides perfectly the law of tithing.19

As we study gospel history, we learn that truth is always truth. We also learn that men are not always capable of living the truth of a higher law. In that event they will be given truth of a lessor law to bring them to the point where they are able to live the higher law. This was also the case when the Israelites left Egypt and wandered in the desert and they were given the carnal law instead of the spiritual law of the church that was given in the time of Christ. It also took place in the primitive church as well as in the restored latter-day church, in the case of living the "United Order" where in the members "had all things in common." It seems that that practice did not survive in the primitive church, nor did it survive in the restored church, as Bruce R McConkie just noted. Never the less it is still a true principle and is only suspended until the Lord sees fit to reinitiate it. The law of tithing, wherein a member gives one tenth of his increase to the church, is the current "school master" to bring members to the point that they can live the Law of Consecration, wherein all is consecrated to the Kingdom of God.

Another Example From the beginning of the restored church of Jesus Christ it has been known that "God is no respecter of persons."20 Even so, He chose to "bless" the rest of his children through Abraham and his descendents. We may also note that he took the gospel first to the Jews21 and then to the gentiles to restore His church in the time of Jesus. In these latter days he is taking the gospel first to the gentiles and then to the Jews.22 These are strategic moves to bring about the successful accomplishment of His ultimate goals for his children. In the restored church, the priesthood for many years had not been extended to members of the black race. We do not know the Lord's reasons for this, but we have all known the priesthood would some day become available to every worthy male in the church. That day finally came "in early June of this year [1978] the First Presidency announced that a revelation had been received by President Spencer W. Kimball extending priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy male members of the church."23 The declaration of this revelation was made on September 30, 1978 at the Semi-annual General Conference of the church and unanimously accepted by the church membership. There have been many important religious practices started and stopped and again started, but always by the authority of God through His recognized prophet. I believe that there are yet many important programs or practices to be introduced into the church to increase the effectiveness in meeting the needs of its members and they also will be done under God's authority through His prophet.

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To Summarize The LDS Church tithes its people one tenth of their increase. But this is a lessor law to fit the current time. It has been prophesied that one day the United Order will be reinstated when the time is right. Then the Law of Consecration will be reinstated wherein the members of the church will be asked to dedicate their total time and resources to the buildup of the Kingdom of God on earth as well as in heaven. In ancient times the Patriarchal Order was the way the Kingdom of God on earth was organized by families with the Patriarch of the family at the head. Today the church achieves its ends to meet the needs of its people through organizations such as Sunday schools, Relief Society and youth programs. The time will come when these programs are prophesied to become replaced and their purposes becoming, once again, the sole responsibilities of the families when the church returns to the Patriarchal Order of organization. The church is a dynamic evolving organization that can be used by God to achieve His earthly and eternal purposes for His peopleonly the gospel truths remain constant. Repentance a vital part of The Lord's program Currently, the use of repentance is a vital part of His program and appears to be used as intended, to be available to all who are able to tap into its power because of their own efforts and readiness. I believe it is still part of the screening process originally began in heaven where the third of the host of heaven screened themselves out by rebellion.. The screening will likely go on until after the devastation of the last times are completed. Sometime thereafter I believe that the full power of repentance will be brought to bear in the healing of those left. I believe it will, in God's time, be institutionalized to the extent that I have described in this book, or something similar. The Church, under the Lord's authority, will use its immense power and resources to teach and facilitate the healing of souls, minds and tissues to the extent that Satan shall not have power over the hearts of men. It has been taught that not all who survive the devastation of the "times of the last days" will be Latter-day Saints. However, "every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ." The scriptures and the prophets tell us that Satan shall be bound for a thousand years and as such all the inhabitants of the earth shall be impervious to his enticements and temptations. The only way that could be possible is for all humanity to become cleansed and purified. And the only way for that to happen is by way of the full healing powers of repentance. The Foundation is Being Laid The signs of the preparations for this time and great works are to be seen all around us, if we only have eyes to see. I have mentioned a number of people who have made and are making sizable contributions to the use of emotive therapies in treatment. They have not, to my knowledge, connected their work to repentance. Some of the contributors that I am

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familiar with are Ron Hubbard and Scientology (1950), Harvey Jakins and Reevaluation Therapy (1950), Arthur Janov and Primal Therapy (1970), Fritz Pearls and Gestalt Therapy, Ida Rolf and Rolfing, the list is long and never ending. More information can be found in other books intended to be more probing and more detailed.24 Local Preparations There have been many contributors on the local level in Utah that may or may not have published much, but that I am aware of. I won't name names, but it is obvious to me that preparations are going forth in a timely manner. My own story is just one of many that testifies of this preparation going on. While I was involved with the "Inner Healing" program in the Gunnison Correctional Facility from about 1995 to 2001, there was at one time, five sources within the prison where an inmate could receive help to become "feeling people" again." And that didn't count the very good help that was available through spiritual programs offered by local churches. Sadly, when I left the prison in 2001 the resources had been reduced to what the local churches could offer, but that is a story for another time. There are many independent efforts being made to maximize healing of emotional, spiritual and mental problems through emotive methods. Most are doing a lot of good. Some have had unintended bad experiences, but on the whole most are taking part, though perhaps unaware, in laying a foundation for a great future in the treatment of those who are hurting mentally, emotionally or spiritually. I knew of one Psychiatrist who started to use a "deep feeling process" with many of his patients. He dedicated one room with mattresses on the floor for him to help patients do their "floor work." I knew of several professors in local Universities that have used "deep feeling" methods to help their patients access past emotional pain as a major part of their therapy. I remember of discussing with a number of prison inmates, interested and involved in the Inner Healing program, about how many local therapists were very close to having the answer to healing and yet not quite getting it. In most cases they were too wedded to their training in "standard therapy. I remember well the times, a few years back, when I had a hard time having any confidence in local sources to refer a client for anything but standard therapy. And I had little confidence of any healing taking place in standard therapy. That, of course, will not be the case in the future. Though it will take a relatively significant paradigm shift in ones view of "healing" and an even larger shift in the view of the delivery of treatment as well as the economics of treatment. I believe it will happenbecause the world can no longer afford the high cost of it not happening. And as the understandings occur and the benefits are made more visible, as I have pointed out in this book, the learning and execution of God's therapy will take place. And as pointed out in this book it is not that difficult. Some Caution is Necessary

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There have been a few programs that demonstrated a lot of power to effect change though were very expensive. The Church did not endorse most of those programs because of the reported tendency in some to fracture relations between spouses. There were also some "wilderness therapy" programs set up to treat errant youth. They were also very effective, but some suffered some "bad press" from some serious mishaps resulting from some "questionable" practices designed to "break down" the "defensive" barriers that interfered with treatment. I have been aware of treatment programs developed to treat children who had not "bonded" with mother at birth. The basic process was founded on, what I believe to be correct principles. One such program was called "Holding Therapy." The idea was to constrain the child until, out of frustration, the child would release the rage that was behind the failure to bond. Much good was accomplished with this therapy. There were, however, mishaps in which the therapist got carried away trying to stimulate a feeling of being in the birth channel with blankets to the extent of a child dying of suffocation. I believe we have already discussed some treatment fads called rebirthing. I don't know if great harm has resulted from this practice, but there is the potential of harm resulting by introducing the client to devastating pain too early. There is a lot of pain that must be properly dealt with before encountering the possible pain of traumatic birth because it happens at the time of the child's greatest vulnerability. There is much reason for exercising caution. However, in my own experience with "Deep Feeling Therapy" I have never seen any harm coming from the practice. On the other hand, there has been much harm and sadness from failure to feel deeply. In fact, the extraordinary healing that takes place in every session is so awe inspiring that I have decided that whatever participation engaged in the practice is a plus for the participant, ever if they never do another session. As I become more and more convinced that "Deep Feeling Therapy" is based on the same principles as repentance, and that repentance is God's very own therapy and is highly recommended by Him, I know that it cannot be dangerous in and of itself. Not withstanding, I do believe that the power of the process should be accompanied by the guidance that is inherent in the authority to act in His name. It is the authority that provides the safety in the healing setting. It insures that the person being healed will not pick up harmful learning inadvertently from the one facilitating the healing. What Then Shall We Do While Waiting? In the first place, we should be "eagerly"engaged in a righteous cause. The Lord is certainly not sitting on His hands with so much to do. We should be seeking our own salvation and that of our families. We should follow the counsel of our leaders, General Authorities, and the Prophet. As part of the foundation work of the Lord, those of us who have knowledge and spiritual understanding to do so are expected to fulfill, to the best of our ability, the righteous goal of healing His children and at the same time not doing them any harm. Our first priority is to self, family and then others as the opportunities present themselves and as our abilities to do so exists and increases.

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Notes
1. St. Luke 9:1-2. 2. St. John 15:16. 3. Hebrews 5:4-6. 4. Gen. 48:14, 17: Num. 27:18-23; Deu. 34:9;Acts 6:5-8;D.&C. 20:41,58,68,70. 5. St. John 15:1, 5. 6. Acts 1:22-26. 7. St. Matt. 7:13-14. 8. St. Matt. 7:21-24. 9. St. Mark 13:22. 10. I Nephi 9:6. 11. Ephes. 2:19-20. 12. Amos 3:7. 13. D.& C. 19:21-22. 14. Alma 2:4:30. 15. Mosiah 2:9. 16. Alma 12:9-10. 17. Acts 2:41-45. 18. D.& C. 51:3; 82:17,20. 19. McConkie, Bruce R., Mormon Doctrine. Bookcraft, Inc. 2nd Ed. 1966, pp. 157158. 20. Acts 10:34-35; Moroni 8:12; D.& C. 1:34. 21. Acts 11:19; Rom. 1:16; Rom. 2:10; Rom. 10:11. 22. D.& C. 133: 8. 23. Official Declaration 2 in the Triple Combination. 24. Olsen, Paul, Ph.D. Ed. Et.al., Emotional Flooding. Vol. 1, Human Sciences Press. A Division of Behavioral Publications, Inc., New York, NY, 1976. Nichols, Michael P. and Zax, Melvin, Catharsis in Psychotherapy. Gardner Press, Inc., New York, NY, 1977.

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