Introduction

Welcome to the introduction to Soul-Centered Healing. My name is Tom Zinser. I live in Grand Rapids, MI where I have a practice in spiritual counseling and hypnotherapy.

Over the last twenty years, I have been involved in the development of an approach to healing that I call Soul-Centered Healing (SCH). This is an approach that recognizes the psychic and spirit dimensions of the self and reality.

I do not find it strange, for example, when a client tells me he or she believes they are being harassed by a spirit entity, or are worried that they're under some kind of psychic attack.

It's not strange when a client tells me they think the problems they are having with their husband or wife might go back to a past life, and if so, they want to resolve it.

It's also not unusual for me to see a client who has some kind of psychic ability or sensitivity and does not know how to deal with it in their everyday life, or are frightened of it and try to suppress it.

Soul-Centered Healing recognizes that these dimensions are real and that there are conditions, phenomena, entities, and forces operating at these levels that can cause a person pain, conflict, confusion or fear. Problems at these levels can also, at times, be the cause or a significant factor in a person's physical illness or condition.

Soul-Centered Healing offers a method and tools to help a person access and work at these levels for healing and resolution when necessary.

SCH also offers a map of these inner realms and an integrated vision of ourselves as psychic and spiritual beings. It's a limited map. It's based on a healing perspective, where the emphasis more often is on what is going wrong at these levels, rather than what is right.

The map itself, though, can help open a person more consciously to these invisible dimensions if they choose.

While I would be glad to take the credit, I did not develop these methods on my own.

Gerod

Soul-Centered Healing developed out of a unique collaboration between myself and a spirit entity named Gerod and it involved my work with several hundred clients over the course of twenty years.

A psychologist working with a psychic or medium is controversial. It was controversial twenty years ago when I started this collaboration with Gerod. It was controversial 150 years ago when some of the most respected professionals in the field attempted to conduct experiments involving mediums and the existence of spirits. William James, who is called the Father of Modern Psychology, was in the forefront of these efforts.

This is still the message today in the professional associations. Stay away from the psychic and spirit realities and diagnose problems within a physical and psychological framework.

My work with Gerod led far outside this framework. I know there are other psychologists and social workers who rely on their own psychic abilities in their therapy practices or who consult psychics on a regular basis. As far as I know, most of them must remain in the closet or risk losing their license and reputation.

The real question here is whether spirits exist – Gerod, in this case, being one – and if so, whether in certain cases they are able to communicate directly to, or through a person. My own position is yes on both points.

Gerod is a spirit channeled by a woman named Katharine Barr who I met in 1987. At the time, I was a clinical psychologist specializing in the use of hypnosis and the treatment of dissociative disorders. These included Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder), Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome, and especially the ongoing effects of childhood abuse and trauma.

In July of that year, Katharine told me that she channeled an entity named Gerod. She knew I was open to unusual phenomena and she offered me the opportunity to have a session with Gerod. I accepted. I knew about psychics, channeling, and card readers but this was my first personal experience with anyone claiming to have these abilities.

In that session, I asked Gerod clinical questions, especially about blocks that I encountered so often with clients using hypnosis and working at these unconscious levels. I took Gerod's information back to my sessions with clients and found that it worked. This included information specifically in one case about a client Gerod said was being interfered with by a spirit.

After my first session with Gerod, I asked Katharine for another session, and then another. When I learned that Gerod could "read" a person's soul and offer present-time information about what was happening with the person at a psychic and soul level, these sessions quickly began to focus on specific clients. If it was true that Gerod could offer present-time information about a person, then it meant that the information could be applied and tested immediately in the person's therapy.

Four months after meeting Gerod, Katharine and I agreed on regular sessions with Gerod for the purpose of assisting my clients' healing. Each week, I met Gerod with a list of questions. These were questions about specific sessions with clients, about clinical issues in general, and also questions about metaphysical realities. Most of each session, though, was focused on specific clients and their healing process.

I never shared Gerod's information with a client beforehand. Clients didn't know what information I was bringing to a session or what direction Gerod was suggesting until the client was in trance and the session begun.

This collaboration with Gerod continued for 14 years and involved more than 650 sessions with Gerod and over ten thousand client sessions.

Over the course of my work with Gerod, he identified many of the phenomena, forces, and conditions that I was encountering with clients.

I learned from Gerod, for example about spirits, discarnate souls, who were interfering with some of my clients and and causing disruption and distress. These spirits ranged from benign to those who have the capacity to harass, attach to, or even intrude into the client's psyche. I also learned over time what makes a person vulnerable to such psychic attachments or intrusion, and how to remove them.

I learned from Gerod about Light and dark as conscious and primal energies whose opposition pervades every dimension of our experience and existence, including especially our psychic and soul dimensions. We are alive and active at these levels even though we are usually not conscious of it. As souls of Light, we each still have our struggles with areas of darkness, as darkness is the anvil on which the soul develops its own consciousness. I learned how deep some wounds and conflicts go, that they can span lifetimes, or be deep enough to wound the soul.

 I learned from Gerod and my clients that we each have sub-personalities which exist at a psychic level and exercise varying degrees of autonomy from the conscious personality. Gerod was able to see these sub-personalities within my clients, and most of the time was able to give very clear descriptions of these inner beings.

I also learned about evil. So many of my clients had been abused as children that it was inevitable that we would have to deal with the reality of evil. Gerod defined evil as the violation of one soul by another, no matter on what level it is occurring – physical, psychic, or spirit. An evil person or spirit knowingly violates another soul's free choice in order to feed in some way. These are acts outside the Light and a soul acting in such a way can become ensnared and lose its way. Gerod taught me about discarnate souls who, for different reasons, become cut off from the Light and then will prey on others. They are still souls and they need the Light to survive. They will prey and feed on incarnate souls where the Light is more accessible to them - what Gerod called "stepped-down" Light energy.

Three Primary Phenomena

It's beyond the scope of this introduction to talk here about the many phenomena and conditions that can occur at these levels. You can read more about these phenomena throughout the site. Right now, keeping with the clinical focus, there are three primary phenomena in the psychic and spirit dimensions of a person that Soul-Centered Healing deals with regularly.

The first are ego-states, or sub-personalities. These are parts of the self, created by the mind for the purpose of protection. An ego-state is created when a person can no longer consciously tolerate what is happening in the present. Trauma comes in all kinds and forms from accidents to acts of abuse . This flight from consciousness precipitates the creation of an ego-state that carries the consciousness in those moments and does what it needs to do to survive. It's as though the mind clones the self's consciousness in that moment, and another self is created.

The best way I know to think about an ego-state is to picture them as psychic beings. Each one is its own center of consciousness, it has its own identity. It may be a 5 year-old, a 10 year-old, or twenty-five years old. They each are alive and conscious in the world in which they were created. They think and feel; they can communicate; and they can tell you what has happened to them. For most, it is still happening from their point of view.

Once an ego-state is created, it does not just dissolve or disappear when the trauma has passed. These inner beings continue to exist at an unconscious level, still separate from the conscious self and still carrying a world of pain, fear or rage. Normally, the ego-states function at an unconscious level, operating in the background, so to speak. These inner beings, though, can be triggered by events and situations in the person's conscious reality. Most often, this is when a present experience involves some or all of the essential elements of the ego-state's own experience.

This is where problems often arise. The ego-state is still living in the world in which it was created, with all its perceptions and reactions, and that world does not match the person's conscious everyday reality in all its complexity and possibility. When an ego-state is triggered, it can be strong enough to interfere with or control a person's perceptions and beliefs, at least temporarily. Its defense, however, is based on old information, and the ego-state's defense is just as likely to be self-defeating or self-destructive rather than helpful. Depending on the ego-state(s) involved, the interference with the conscious person can range from negligible to profound. Identifying and resolving these inner beings is one of the primary aims in Soul-Centered Healing.

The second phenomenon that is frequently a focus in Soul-Centered Healing is "past-lives". Sometimes the conflict or struggle a person is experiencing in the present is due to past-life issues, especially where a soul's past-life experience is strong enough to interfere with and cause conflict in a person's present life. It is not uncommon to find soul themes and lessons woven through a person's present-life experience. It's not unusual either to find past-life experience "breaking through" sometimes and becoming a source of intense conflict or confusion.

The third major phenomenon that Soul-Centered Healing deals with is the interference or intrusion into a person's life by discarnate entities or beings. This most often involves spirits, but it can also include extra-dimensional entities or beings who carry on activities outside one's normal awareness. These attachments and intrusions range from benign to malevolent, and they occur for many different reasons. Soul-Centered Healing employs techniques to identify these situations when they are occurring and to remove the entities from the self /soul.

While much of the work in Soul-Centered Healing focuses on ego-states, often enough a person's past-lives and/or encounters with other beings are also a part of the clinical picture.

 The Protective Part

Early in my work with Gerod, I learned about two other parts of the self that became central in the healing process. The first is what I called the "protective part of the mind”. This is a conscious, perceiving part of the mind, separate from the conscious self. Like the ego-states, the protective part also is a center of consciousness only its consciousness is focused in the present. Like having a second pair of eyes watching over your shoulder. These eyes, though, are constantly scanning and vigilant for any sign of threat – physical, emotional, or psychological.

More will be said about the protective part in other areas of this site, especially in terms of the role it plays in our everyday life. Right now, though, I want to keep with the clinical focus.

I learned that the protective part was often a source of blocking and interference in my hypnosis work with clients. It often perceived the healing work as a threat and would protect the self by blocking access to areas and parts of the self that started opening old wounds, exposing hidden terrors, or triggering some deep shame or guilt. From the point of view of the protective part, pain is pain, wherever it comes from, and needs to be stopped.

I learned that I could communicate with the protective part directly and elicit its cooperation in the healing process. The protective part is ultimately an ally, and once it understands that healing is for the highest good of the self, it almost always will step aside. Eliciting this agreement in the beginning can preempt a good deal of blocking down the road. Because of this, communicating with the protective part is the first step in Soul-Centered Healing.

The Higher Self

The second part of the self I learned about from Gerod was the higher self. The "higher self" is recognized in other approaches to healing, and it's talked about in other cultures and spiritual traditions. Psychologists who work with dissociative disorders know it by the term, Inner Self Helper. Gerod called the higher self an emissary from the soul, a projection of the soul's consciousness into our present life.

The higher self, like the protective part, is also a consciousness operating separately from the conscious self. Only it is a soul consciousness. It knows the Light and has knowledge of the soul’s journey through lifetimes. It is aware in the present reality, but knows the present life as a manifesting of soul. The higher self acts as an inner beacon of the Light, but it is also active, or can be, in one's present life and reality.

In Soul-Centered Healing, the client’s higher self plays a central role. It offers the person a deeper connection with the soul’s Light. It can identify ego-states that have been triggered or are in conflict with the conscious personality. It can communicate directly with these inner beings and bring them Light and understanding. It can identify underlying factors involved in one’s physical condition or illness. The higher self can also communicate with spirits directly, whether they are guides from the Light offering assistance or intrusive spirits interfering with the self. The higher self can also discern what is part of one’s own self/soul energy and what is not. Because of its many abilities, the higher self is an active guide and ally in every session.

The Healing Process

Soul-Centered Healing uses hypnosis to help a person access and work within the psychic and spirit dimensions of the self. The aim is to identify and resolve issues at these levels that may be causing or contributing to a person's present distress or illness. Just as important, in the process of healing, a person deepens and expands their connection to their own inner Light, the soul. At its deepest level, Soul-Centered Healing is about helping a person live in the knowledge and harmony of the Light.

There is no typical "case" in Soul-Centered Healing. While ego-states, spirits, and past-lives are often the focus of healing, there are other conditions and forces operating at these levels that can cause problems as well. Each person's inner world and soul story are absolutely unique. You can never predict what will emerge in a person's healing process. The aim of Soul-Centered Healing is to help a person address what does present.

A couple, for example, trying to heal a relationship may discover that the roots of their discord stem from other lifetimes and may need to be addressed at this level as well.

A person may discover that a sub-personality interferes whenever he or she has to deal with an authority figure and needs to heal this part of themselves and be more centered when these situations arise.

Some people are beset by spirits, discarnate souls, that are interfering or harassing them at a psychic level. The spirit(s) involved may be either benign or just mischievous, or they may be malevolent. Whatever the situations, the person needs to find the doors or openings these spirits use to gain access and then learn how to close them and keep them closed.

A person who has been depressed for years may discover deep areas of the self shrouded in a darkness of childhood pain and terror. Put there originally to protect the self, it has become toxic like radioactive waste. By bringing light into these areas, a person can heal old wounds and perceptions that are obstacles in the present.

It's not uncommon to find that a person needs to address soul issues that have existed for lifetimes and are manifesting once more in their present life. It's part of the work we come here to do, even though we don't grasp it at a conscious level. The soul is learning and evolving through the person's experience. Soul-Centered Healing helps a person bring light into these issues and deal with them here and now.

I'm going to stop at this point. I know it is a lot of territory to cover in an introduction. You will find more about Soul-Centered Healing and the psychic and spirit dimensions in different areas of the site. In concluding, I would emphasize just two points. First, I think as a culture we are facing a boundary and an awakening to the reality that there are other levels of consciousness and being besides our ego-consciousness. And second, that we are psychic and spiritual beings as well as physical, and from a healing point of view and an everyday point of view, the source of one's pain or the cause of a problem may very well lie at these levels and need to be addressed there.

There is a great deal more written about the psychic and spirit dimensions that you'll find on these pages. There are many people exploring and looking at these dimensions from many points of view. I'll share with you some of the books and articles that I've found helpful or interesting. I welcome your suggestions as well.