A post on my free MP3 download of the Through the Gate into Tarot process, the first episode of my hypnocast, came up that the response to which is worth sharing for folks who have the same sort of questions.
Brian David Phillips writes:
There is a tarot process for meditation posted in mp3 format at http://briandavidphillips.libsyn.com . . . you do NOT need to subscribe to the podcast to download the audio.
Hi Brian, I'm here right now listening to your guided imagery and it's excellent. I love your choice of words.
I am glad you are enjoying it.
Later, I'll do the whole exercise when undistracted. I'm also a Hypnotherapist and Tarot reader and yet do not (for the most part) incorporate the two in my practice. I have never felt comfortable mixing the two professionally, so I really thank you for this gift.
You are welcome. I don't normally use Tarot cards as part of my professional hypnosis practice except with people who volunteer to me that they use or read Tarot. For those folks, I teach them this process for introspective meditation. For hypnotherapy, I tend to use other processes than this sort of open-ended guided imagery.
However, for recreational or meditative use of Tarot with hypnosis, this process can work fairly well . . . particularly if you tag it in with Experiential Hypnosis type processes (deep trance phenomena so that all of the senses are fully associated into the experience - a bit like hyperempiria but using somnambulism, if you're unfamiliar with the idea see the "experiential hypnosis" portion of my blog at http://briandavidphillips.typepad.com/brian/ as I've enough there to get anyone with hypnosis experience enough to go on to get goin' themselves.
The inspiration to go ahead and record this new variation of the process I use with Tarot and hypnosis as the first episode of the hypnocast came from Ming-Yng Vidmar . . . friend and fellow hypnosis traveller . . . who, with her husband, famed hypnotist Dr. Joseph "Deepak" Vidmar (his webpages are here), comes regularly to my mostly-monthly hypnosis workshops and community get-together thingies. I was demonstrating my process and found out she also enjoys Tarot cards (I have a rather sizeable collection of rare and beautiful decks and while I do not use them for "fortunetelling" per se, I do employ them for introspective meditation).
I use a sort of Deep Trance Identification/Modeling process that I call the Vicarious Experiential Machine in which folks watch a movie, look at a series of photographs, or read a story and then hypnotically associate fully into the experience and imaginatively experience it as if it is happening to them right then (for athletes, this sort of experience creates muscle memory and greatly accellerates skill improvement). As I loved Piers Anthony's World of Tarot and Cluster novels, I thought it would be really neat to use the process and then step into a Tarot card to fully experience that sort of meditation as if it were fully associated and real ala the novel's experiences for "Brother Paul." It worked beautifully.
As a hypnotist, you might be interested in the original process, I taught a webinar (web-based seminar using text chat, voice, and webcam) on the process for the Hypnosis Technique Exchangea couple years ago and may have posted summaries there in addition to my other posts on experiential hypnosis there and on the blog as I do occassionally post about my workshops here in Taipei and I have demonstrated this process a few times in that context.
For those unfamiliar with it, the process can be used as a full on associated hypnotic process (my preference) or as a simple imaginative guided imagery (as presented in the MP3). The variation in the podcast MP3 uses a three card spread that allows the unconscious to generate a positive learning experience vision or imaginative adventure that has "everything to do" with whatever is going on in someone's life at that time.
Another variation of the process, is a simple one card draw (either random or selected - some folks will start with the Fool and then go through the entire deck (either in order of the Major Arcana first or through random draws) in a way so that they eventually create a personal connection and understanding of every card in the deck at the intuitive level. Basically, one enters trance and then imagines the borders of the card becoming a portal and then steps through the gates into the world beyond the border of the cards and then interacts with the characters that can be seen and that are hidden beyond the card's border, in essence allowing the unconscious to create a narrative or experience that enhances one's intuitive understanding of the card. Obviously, with deep trance, the experience can be much more powerful than simple relaxation or light trance.
If you are interested, there are a couple MP3s in my "free MP3" section of my main webpages at http://www.briandavidphillips.com (they're in the DRTRC section under the Deep Trance Modelling heading). They're called memory machine (an early name for the Vicarious Experiential Machine process) and condition folks to use the process . . . albeit, while I have had folks email me that the process works great for them, when I work with clients I always run the process in a live hypnosis session and make certain I have somnambulism to compound the conditioning then I give them an audio recording to reinforce their trigger sets rather than to do the conditioning. However, highly suggestible folks or those who repeat the process for some time, have reported good results just using the free MP3 for themselves (eventually, I will be taking most of the free files down as I re-record things either for my commercial product line or for the podcast). If you (or anyone else reading this list) would like to give it a go in relation to Tarot spreads or processes, please let me know how it goes for you (the process results, not the private visionary experience which personally I think should be a private matter).
I'm having a problem in that occasionally the audio pauses for a minute or more.....sometimes this appears to be planned but on two occasions so far, it was an actual interruption.
Are you listening to the files streaming (by pressing play from the internet link) or are you making certain the files are completely downloaded before playing?
The original files do not have behavior as you describe (except where it says the silence is for you to enjoy the experience and allow your unconcsious to further create an adventure for you beyond the gates of Tarot but in those instances the file will continue to play and you should hear the music in the background rather than just silence). I went ahead and downloaded the files to my machine at work and then listened to them with no such behaviors which makes me suspect it may be a difficulty with a streaming play where the file played a bit faster than your connection was able to stream it and buffer for your player.
Make sure the whole file is downloaded and then let me know if you encounter the problem again.
Not a complaint, just some information for you.
I appreciate it.
I am in Taiwan . . . in the heart of the Exotic East, so to speak and the podcast server is somewhere in the US as far as I can tell. I went with that service as a number of podcasters I listen to and it seems pretty reliable. While I am no newcomer to hypnosis by far or even to creating MP3s (I created over 100 MP3 trance sessions for my old experimental experiential hypnosis group back in the day), I am new to podcasting. I am learning the ropes as I go so I would expect quality to improve as I develop a system. For now, it's all shake downs and runabouts.
All the best,
Brian
http://www.briandavidphillips.com
Note: The original illustrating tarot cards in this post can be found here (just for fun).
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