Recovering Our Soul: Metamorphosis 2

In Metamorphosis 1, I introduced you to parallels between the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly and the metamorphosis of the human ego into the soul… a great change going on as we speak. We are, indeed, in the process of recovering our soul. We are encasing ourselves in a chrysalis of fear while we disassemble old ego-based thought forms and reassemble them in new, soul–based, thought forms… recovering our soul(s) individually and collectively. I would like to further compare caterpillar and human, introducing you to other human beings with similar insight. I am not about to claim this insight as something uniquely mine, and I am of a mind to be aware that this metamorphosis is something that is fundamental to our conscious evolution.

To begin to compare caterpillar and human metamorphoses, let us look at those “small clusters of cells” that I introduced you to in my first metamorphosis blog. I told you then that those cells had nothing to do with the caterpillar and everything to do with the butterfly—and they all came from the same DNA! Science calls those clusters “imaginal discs”… and please keep in mind that the scientific name for the adult butterfly is “imago”. Yes, you can substitute “image” here! The discs contain the image of the adult! Now consider this: we, too, contain the image of ourselves as we evolve into something we heretofore have not really taken seriously… we truly are “spiritual beings immersed in the human condition,” (as Teilhard de Chardin expressed to Jean Houston).

A serious student of spirituality, Craig Hamilton (no relative), in a 2012 one hour and 49 minute talk called, “Evolving Beyond Ego” that introduced me to a refreshing term that I have been looking for for years, feeling that there was more to me than a “low self” called “Ego” and a “High Self” called “Soul”… the “Evolutionary Self”. It is his take on the result of recovering our soul. I have images and dreams of this Self that go way back in my lifetime, and clearly have to do with our fantastic creative potential for a conscious, participatory evolution. Evolutionary Self or, “E-self,” for short (my term) is much greater than the two traditional Selves, ego and Soul. It knows what role each one of those Selves plays in an individual’s life. (If you would like to know more about Craig, I recommend that you go to his Integral Enlightenment website, http://integralenlightenment.com)

Now I would like to take you to a conversation that I heard Steve Dinan and Barbara Marx Hubbard share that may be available on his Shift Network website, http://theshiftnetwork.com/ in their conversation, they brought up the parallel between the evolution of the caterpillar into the butterfly and the human being into this Evolutionary Self that Craig Hamilton talks about. In it, Barbara suggests that the imaginal discs that I mention above (she calls them “imaginal cells”) have their distinct parallel in the human metamorphosis in the form of small, supportive groups.

The two of them go on to describe these groups, and, strangely enough, they effectively describe the H.O.P.E. Groups that I have been guiding for nearly 28 years, now… a total of over 5000 of these meetings! They can be true “self Help” groups—”volunteer” H.O.P.E. Groups because they are not facilitated, guided, counseled or otherwise led or directed by a licensed healthcare provider. Look at our website and see how you, as a “volunteer” (meaning untrained but not necessarily uneducated) human being can “convene” your own H.O.P.E. Group for your own purposes, not the least of which would be to help you participate consciously in the revolutionary evolution in which we find ourselves today. We are recovering our soul(s).

To carry this a step farther, they, as with many others, are seeing that there is a thread tying together all of these human imaginal discs just as the central nervous system of the caterpillar gives all of the imaginal discs a common thread on which to build the butterfly. It is the central nervous system that we call the Internet! We are tying our spiritual selves—our souls together across the world.

It is important to know that we also train and certify healthcare professionals in our methods so they can start a H.O.P.E. Group in their own practice(s). This training acknowledges and validates the professional ethics required by any license, exactly as my work in the early days of H.O.P.E. complemented my clinical work,in which I adhered to all of the professional ethical conduct of a General Surgeon, Medical Doctor, licensed to practice surgery in the State of Maine.

Today, a year and a half after I first wrote this blog, I have been introduced to a greater quality of the soul than I have earlier felt comfortable talking or writing about—the soul is a “Light Being” incarnated in a human body. (I sense that Teilhard de Chardin was referring directly to this in his words to Jean Houston, which I quoted in Metamorphosis 1). This appreciation of a higher nature is not common to people who have a “near death experience” (NDE). Rather, it is common to those who have had a “beyond–death experience” in which they get, as Raymond Moody (1975) says a “glimpse of the beyond”. It was not until I had heard from Peter Panagore, Minister of the First Radio Parish Church of America, how he had died of hypothermia in 1980 and had gone beyond to do a complete “life review” before going into pure beauty and love. There he voiced the need to return… and return, he did, and is open about his experiences today.

I met Peter about 10 years ago, and heard his story then. I had already read both Betty Eadie’s 1992 account, and Dannion Brinkley’s 1995 account of their beyond death experiences. I could not completely integrate their experiences into my own consciousness until I was introduced to the 2012 book by Anita Moorjani about her beyond–death experience. Coincidentally, a woman came to her first H.O.P.E. Group meeting with the story about her own beyond–death experience when she was 24 years old. Subsequent to that meeting I found the 2007 work of Nanci L. Danison describing her 1994 lengthy, detailed, and complete beyond–death experience… so complete that she knew she had died… and yet she asked to be able to return to tell her story. Her wish was granted and she, an accomplished lawyer, spent 10 years investigating the phenomenon and found remarkable consistencies in thousands of similar stories. Of note, she was shown that our soul is a “Light Being” living and experiencing life in a human form, and that is “in the way of all things.”

For your information, you can Google any one of these names I have given you, and find out all about them. It is an interesting adventure. For me, it validates the work that I’ve been learning and doing my whole life that underlies my devotion to the work of H.O.P.E, Healing of Persons exceptional. The metamorphosis that I have spoken about in two blogs is not hypothetical, my friends, it is real. Give yourself permission to know that you are not judged or controlled, and that you do not need to judge yourself or others… there is nothing that anyone needs to control. Rather you need to acknowledge the fact that you have the power to live the life that was given you… indeed promised you since the beginning of time.

I invite you with this to know that H.O.P.E. supports you in your participation in the conscious evolution that comprises the revolution in which we find ourselves. We offer you H.O.P.E. without charge, because it was given to us at no cost. With that in mind, we are, however, a 501(c)(3) corporation that is very pleased to accept contributions which acknowledge the value received through the value given… with our thanks and blessings. Please feel free to stay in touch….