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Newsletter 20

                              1st August 2015

'Consciousness is like that'

 

It is more than 40 years since Drs Hal and Sidra Stone began developing the methodology which they later named Voice Dialogue. The first selves they discovered were very young  - Little Harry and Lisa. They write:

 

'So the work began with what we named the Inner Child - as far as we know, we were the first to use that term. It began out of a relationship in which a deep love was evolving. It had no context so far as therapy was concerned. These children of ours were real and the continuing work we did with them gave us a way of widening and deepening our co-exploration. We were not just stunned by what was happening. We were extremely excited. If these inner children were real, who else was there?'


At that time, people were bemused by the the term "Inner Child" and the idea that we have many different "inner selves". Today selves have gone mainstream. Here's a recent advertising campaign by Danone for Evian bottle mineral water: Dancing with my Baby-Me

 

In a quick search on YouTube I found examples of similar ads by several major corporations, each referencing different inner selves. Here are just a few:

Mars, Inc., Snickers: Inner Diva

Lowe's: Make your Football Self happy 

Ford: Let your Inner Child out


 

Frito-Lay, (PepsiCo) Doritos: Would you unleash your Inner Hulk?


 

This year Disney Pixar have released a cartoon film, Inside Out, which shows how a small group of inner selves - representing five different emotional states - inform and influence the interactions between an eleven year old girl and her parents. In making the film the producers consulted with psychologists and included current findings from neuroscience.

 

 

The film grossed $90.4 million in its first weekend - the highest opening for an original title - besting Avatar's previous record. Something about this model of the psyche clearly resonants with us!

 

More and more people are exploring their inner selves through the methodology of Voice Dialogue and clearly the Stones are very happy that their work is becoming more widely known. But for them this is only the first step in a much larger exploration of consciousness.

 

As I wrote in my last newsletter, the process of recognising, appreciating and separating from selves like the Inner Child, Baby-Me, Diva, Football Self, Hulk, etc. is just the beginning of a journey. It is one that leads us firstly to an exploration of the place / space that lies between all the selves - what the Stones call the Aware Ego Process. If we have the courage to continue on this path, we are inevitably led to an experience of what Hal is now calling "Source Energy" or "Source Field" - that which lies beyond the apparent duality of the selves and the Aware Ego Process. He writes:


 
'From Voice Dialogue to the Aware Ego Process to Source Energy is part of a package. It is a road map that is becoming increasingly used in travelling the road that was once less travelled. There are many other roads and ways of looking at things. I support them all. In the end we are all moving to the same place and in the same direction. Consciousness is like that.'

 

Last March I visited Hal and Sidra at their home in Mendocino, California. I asked Hal some questions about Source Energy. As you read his answers below I think you'll get a sense of just how far he and Sidra have travelled along the road of consciousness since they first met Little Harry and Lisa all those years ago.

 

With gratitude,

John

 

To read previous newsletters click here.



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Hal Stone Answers Questions about Source Energy

 

John: What is the meaning of "Source" and what led to your exploration of this process?


 
Hal: Source energy is the basic energy of the universe. It arises from the creation of time and how the basic molecules of creation become manifest. I have no idea how all this happens but it happens. So the term has to do with the basic energy of creation. Scientists from the field of physics and biology speak now of a "Source Field" of which we are all a part. Psychological thinking and process is the latest to join this group of explorers who have begun to think in these terms.


I was led to Source energy by a series of dreams that came to me over the past four years. In the last year of this period of time I came very close to dying and the dream activity was strongly exacerbated. It was in the spring of 2005 that I had my first dream in the current series and since that time I have been led inexorably to the existence of Source Energy. I began to go back over many other dreams that have occurred over the past 30 years and to examine certain core dreams that I had thought of as Spiritual and now would call them Source dreams that express the intelligence of the Source Field. In addition to the dream process there also occurred an activation of synchronistic events that began to occur in a way that was very similar to the early years of Sidra's and my relationship.

 

John: What is the connection between Voice Dialogue and Source?


 Hal: 
Voice Dialogue is the name of a primary methodology that has to do with the identification and objectification of the multiplicity of Selves of which we are composed. Part One of the process has to do with talking to the Selves. Part Two of the process occurs with the development of the Aware Ego Process as we are able to embrace oppositional Selves in a conscious way. The Aware Ego is not a Self but rather a coordinating energy system that learns to embrace all of the Selves and eventually to embrace all of the oppositional Selves that are alive in us.


 
Part three is learning how to operate in the world with a new and different framework, and begin to free ourselves of our judgmental nature as we learn to embrace this huge multiplicity of Selves. Part four is a gradual evolutionary movement that leads us to the experience of the Source Field that is the creator of the cosmos of which earth and its environs is only one small part. It creates our psycho-spiritual system, or software, and it creates those attributes we have that allow us to live successfully on earth itself. It carries that map of our inner destiny. It has no doctrine, nor dogma. It is not male or female. Spiritual reality gives us the experience of God energy just as life gives us the many experiences of earth energy.

 

John: Why did you change the name from "Organising Intelligence" to "Source"?


 
Hal: I have thought about the Organizing Intelligence since I first began my Jungian Analysis in 1949. The first impact of my dream life was to experience this coherent language of the unconscious as an Intelligence rather than a particularly spiritual process. It was much later when I had very profound spiritual dreams and initiations that my process began to become a spiritual one and I stopped thinking of my process as coming from an Organizing Intelligence. This changed again many years later when Sidra and I began to work with Selves through Voice Dialogue and also as we began to appreciate the mathematical nature of the bonding patterns and the way that a deeper intelligence seemed to be leading us through the labyrinth of unconscious material in ways that we felt were both organized and chaotic. We felt that there was a higher nature in us that behaved in an intelligent fashion and it was to this Intelligence that I began to surrender on an ever-deepening level.

 

I n the spring of 2005 I had a dream in which I was being celebrated from another level/dimension of consciousness. The gathering was in a large auditorium that was on earth. The friends or whoever they are - they are certainly friends - presented me with a video cassette that contained every dream I had ever had and each dream had also been set to music. In addition, the video cassette itself had a name - a title. It was called "The Music of the Spheres". I was astounded by this dream. Who are these people who feel like intimate friends? Who is celebrating me in this way? I simply knew at that time that this was not a spiritual dream. It was something else and it is from this time on that I began my search to understand this process. I felt that they were trying to teach me things and I was a very open student to learn what I needed to learn.

 

I didn't want to rush too quickly to naming this level/dimension of consciousness. I started with "Organizing Intelligence". By this dream I was beginning to study in many different areas and "Source" was becoming a much more familiar word. The term "Source Intelligence" jumped into the lead and then "Source Energy". In some of my reading the term "Source Field" was coming up in other areas of study and so I added Source Field to the m�lange of names. However, I'm in no rush to nail things down so I move between them as I am feeling them at the time. At this point my favorite seems to be Source Field, which is more consonant with current research in Physics and Biology. A Source Field operates from an energetic system that is intelligence based.

 

So the name will settle how it settles and the interactive process we are in will, I believe, lead us in the proper direction.

           

John: Why is it important that more people come to connect with or understand Source? Why Source and God?


 
Hal: The vast majority of people enter consciousness work through the spiritual side. Invariably they move from experiential events to a system of
rules and regulations that destroy the basic meaning of spiritual reality. The vast majority of spiritual leaders and teaches are over-identified with spiritual reality and when this happens it is most difficult to do the meat and potatoes work that is required to learn about relationship and so many other areas it is necessary for us to master if we are to become effective citizens of planet earth. These areas would include bonding patters and relationship issues; the role of sexuality; the conscious use of power versus mastery over others, and many other essential areas of understanding and practice. Source Energy honors both spiritual and material systems equally.

 

Source Energy in the dream process is constantly inviting us to separate from our primary selves when they are too much out of control. Source Energy doesn't tell you what to do, but rather shows you what is out of balance. It behaves like a divorce lawyer that is always separating us from what we are psychologically married to. It's like a giant master scale, allowing us to feel the balance and imbalance of the many opposites that we live with.

 

Tens of millions of people hate the idea of God. This hatred and judgment is based primarily on negative experiences with the structure of formal religion. Formal religion, by and large, has lost its moorings. It doesn't know how to help people re-discover their spiritual origins. It has become mental and highly charged and highly polarized. Women are enraged that God continues to be a He. Why is it a He? Because the original experiences of spiritual reality are not he or she. The He develops and rules and regulations become the cornerstone of formal religion, which has little to do any longer with re-engaging the sacred symbols that lie within us waiting for activation. Short of having a near death experience, or simply dying, how does one open oneself to a process where the direct energy of God and of Christ and of Bhudda and of all the other members of the spiritual hierarchy can come to life again? The answer can no longer come directly from the religions of the world unless something akin to a miracle happens.

 

I end with this quote from a post written by the Dalai Lama in December 2013 on his Facebook website. As the leading figure of one of the world's great religions, I think that this quote really speaks for itself.

 

'All the world's major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.'

 

I believe that the Source Field, or something by any other name, is the kind of approach we are all going to have to travel on our individual journeys. This will happen one at a time but I think it will also travel more quickly than things have moved before. The Dalai Lama's post is not a sad ending but in truth a new and different kind of beginning that will engage many of us for years, decades or centuries to come.


 
Albion, Mendocino, March 2015

 

     
 
Voice Dialogue Facilitator Training
 

Overview

This training is for therapists, counsellors, coaches, health care practitioners and anyone working in the area of personal growth and development. It provides a comprehensive grounding in the theory and practice of Voice Dialogue, The Psychology of Selves and the Aware Ego Process. At the end of the training participants will have a powerful new tool that will complement their practice and enhance their ability to help clients achieve more balance in their lives.

 

Structure

The training includes 4 workshops spaced over 9 months (total 10 days). Each workshop will focus on the theory and practice of Voice Dialogue and its application to a range of client issues.

 

In addition, over the course of the training, participants will have a total of 6 personal 90-minute facilitations from the trainer (face to face or via skype), and will be expected to complete and document ongoing practice sessions with other members of the group.

 

Participants will receive a comprehensive self-study pack of readings, videos and exercises covering every aspect of the work.

 

Certificates of attendance are available for CPD.

 

Maximum group size 4 participants

 

The next course begins the weekend of 3rd - 4th October 2015

 

For more information click here.

 

 

 
In This Issue
Workshops,
Trainings & Events



This e-learning program is now available for you to study at any time to suit you.
 
3 - 4 October

  

12 September
 

 
 
29 August
 
 
27 August
 
 
10 - 11 October
 
 

 
 

Private Sessions
Face-to-face or via skype

email: John

 

or call:

+44 (0)7941141377
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
by John Kent

Book cover

How different parts of us inform and influence our daily lives.

Foreword by Drs Hal and Sidra Stone

Now available as an ebook!!