Developed in the 1970s by David Quigley, Alchemical Hypnotherapy combines the use of hypnosis to access the subconscious mind to reveal and heal traumas which occurred in the past, yet affect our present. It also brings in the concept of spirit guides to aid in the healing process. The writings of the Middle Age alchemists indicate that they saw their inner guides as keys to their own transformation. According to Carl Jung, the first modern alchemist, the vehicles of this transformative process were the archetypes, the Inner Guides.
Therefore Alchemy can be defined as the spiritual discipline of working with Inner Guides. These powerful and autonomous beings live within the unconsciousness mind and can guide us effectively to health, happiness, relationships, prosperity, and most important, the fulfilment of our spiritual purpose! These Guides can be accessed through the hypnotic state. It is a non-invasive system wherein the therapist acts as a guide for the client's exploration. The focus is on giving the person resources within themselves that they can call upon to resolve their own issues. These resources are often referred to as Inner Guides.
The main focus of Alchemical Hypnotherapy is to resolve issues relating to un-healed childhood memories (working with the Inner Child), and to allow a person to sort out the multiple different agendas that most of us carry within us, a sort of internal Conference Room. Once we have healed our outstanding issues, and brought the conflicting parts of ourselves into harmony, we are much better at coping with the complexities of life.
Alchemical Hypnotherapy is a therapeutic process designed to assist the client in working with their Inner Guides to change their lives. Alchemical Hypnotherapy synthesizes techniques from many modern schools of Transpersonal Hypnotherapy and Psychology. It includes Gestalt, Regression Therapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Psychosynthesis and Shamanism with the ancient science of Alchemy as translated and channelled to the modern world by Dr. Carl Jung.
In his excellent book Love, Medicine and Miracles, the American surgeon Dr. Bernie Siegel demonstrates the emotional roots of cancer: the most accurate way to predict if a cancer biopsy will prove malignant is a questionnaire testing emotional repression, traumatic loss, and hopeless despair. He describes many disease reversals obtained by allowing emotions to flow and lead to positive life changes (including positive attitudes to surgery). Siegel asks his patients directly: What is the meaning of your disease? And to elicit answers they can't give consciously he has them draw colored pictures of their body and treatment. Advanced methods of trance work (hypnotherapy) allow deeper unconscious beliefs to be found and resolved.
The methods of this work are psychological, but the foundation is love -- love between the therapist and client, and the love for themselves and others which the client can always discover deep within themselves, original, intact, shining and singing. Alchemical Hypnotherapy explores unconscious forces behind behavior patterns in life and relationships. Can cellular, microbiological activities of the body be regarded as unconscious behaviors in the same way? According to David Quigley, the originator of Alchemical Hypnotherapy, "In my experience, everyone I've worked with who has been committed to finding a spiritual, emotional or metaphysical meaning behind their symptoms has had at least some healing or remission."
To start, you don't need a conscious belief that you are creating this disease. All that's needed is the commitment to go on a voyage of discovery. Our perceptions of the past are carried in memory as imagery. We cannot go back and change our historical past but we can change the content of the images that carry it. The imagery of emotionally charged events of the past can be the source of emotional charge in the present, and it is a basic premise of Alchemical Hypnotherapy that unless the imagery is transformed, the simple release of emotional build-up may only be a temporary solution.
The goals of a typical Alchemical Hypnotherapy session are to:
(1) locate the memory and imagery behind an issue and release the emotion associated with that imagery,
(2) restructure the imagery, and,
(3) access or create an internal resource which is then anchored to the outer world through post hypnotic suggestion.
Alchemical Hypnotherapy sessions are accomplished by using one or more of the following techniques:
Etheric Plane Communication: Allows emotional expression and encourages resolution of incomplete or disturbing relationships.
Running and Changing Incidents: Actually transforms negative experiences of the past into positive resources for the present.
Rescuing the Inner Child: Provides emotional security for the "little child" that exists in each of us.
Inner Guide Work: Establishes communication with the transpersonal levels of the psyche.
Past Life Regression: Used for clearing trauma, contacting resource states, and locating and changing hidden agreements.
Conference Room: An advanced form of "subpersonality work" used to create order from internal chaos by resolving conflicts between our various sub-personalities.
Specifically, Alchemical Hypnotherapy, as developed by David Quigley, includes all of the following processes:
The rescue of the inner child from the trauma, neglect, and emotional pain of the past.
Providing the inner child with new loving parents and the experiences of a nurturing childhood. I create with you a loving inner world in which someone is always there to hear and respond to your needs.
Strategies for contacting, testing, and working with the Inner Guides (archetypes) through trance, movement, and shamanic practices.
Contacting past-life memories within the collective unconscious to access creative abilities, resolve trauma, change karma, and alter contracts with significant others.
Integration of sub-personalities (different voices within ourselves) to resolve conflicting desires and goals. This leads to the unification of the will and the achievement of dreams.
Alchemical Hypnotherapy uses movement, psychodrama, emotional release, touch, breath, and sound to achieve integration at the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels.
The technology of Alchemical Hypnotherapy has been applied very successfully to all of these issues:
Addiction recovery
Healing survivors of childhood abuse and molestation
Weight management, including compulsive eating
Smoking cessation
Healing the underlying causes of physical illness (in conjunction with medical treatment)
Stress management
Enhancing creative potential and achieving peak performance
Solving the problems of co-dependence and relationships
Help with decision-making and development of motivation and career success