But I am a practical person, and finding a balanced merge of cerebration and emotion has been my particular struggle. I have to really control my urge to "give my body up to be burned", to "give all I own to the poor", and to sacrifice myself in any number of ways as a martyr. For me, that is far more difficult than subjecting all of my emotions to one emotion to develop emotional will.
As I have written in Amazing Grace, at a certain point in my life I decided that this "way of the heart" was, indeed, the path for me and I embraced it wholeheartedly. I was 30 years old and pretty worn out from seeking God in knowledge; or at least I wasn't getting anywhere with it that felt satisfying, so the urgings of my (ex) husband to "get back with God" in the old-fashioned, fundamental way were like an anchor beckoning me to "come and rest". So, to put it bluntly, I plunged headfirst into the "faith trip".
Not being one to do anything halfway, I put all thinking aside, all knowledge aside, and essentially submitted myself, willingly and by choice to believe that "faith would take me home". To make the point of how effective this was accomplished, I will share a funny event.
In the early days of this "plunge", I was sitting in church with my (ex) husband and children. I was observing the order of the service, the standing up, sitting down, turning to page so-and-so to sing a hymn, the kneeling and praying and so forth. I realized suddenly, from my training as a hypnotherapist, that this whole process was a form of hypnosis. In studying mass or group hypnosis, we had been taught about what is called the "Yes set". The yes set is designed to put people into a mild trance state, to entrain their brain function, and to make them receptive to the deepening of the trance and any suggestions that follow. It is accomplished by getting a group of people to either respond "yes" to a series of questions, or to get them to comply with a series of innocuous requests. In doing so, they "give their will" to the person making the request.
One way this works for "charismatic" public speakers is for them to deliberately pose several questions in a row (at least three) that they are certain everyone, or most everyone, will agree with. For example: a politician might begin his campaign speech with these three questions:
- "Are you tired of high taxes?"
- "Have you had enough of crime and violence in this country?"
- "Is everyone tired of spending their hard earned dollars for less and less every week?"
Hardly anyone would disagree with any of these questions. But, by agreeing with them, by saying "yes" three times in a row - even if only mentally - the first stage of induction has just been accomplished!
So, there I was, realizing that what was being done in this church - and churches around the world and down through the centuries - was that people were being hypnotized. So, what did I think about this? Well, since I had decided to "take the plunge", I decided that it was okay because it was hypnosis for the RIGHT reasons! Yup! That's me talking there! When I do something, I go ALL the way!
Immediately, my life began to fall apart.