Articles

This article discusses how ritual is a form of self-remembering where we enter a no time/no space zone. Included is a visualization by Colette Aboulker-Muscat from the Encyclopedia of Mental Imagery (editor: Dr. Gerald Epstein) to be done four times per year at the equinoxes and solstices to create change in ourselves. 

Enlightenment requires more than an initial illuminative experience; it requires  "polishing the diamond of Self" even as we exist in our time-space world.  Imagination is one such practice that can heal physical life and foster our Enlightenment.  The Imagery Exercise, Round Mirror, by Colette Aboulker-Muscat is included. 

How Does Mental Imagery Work?

Imagery is an ancient healing method that is based in a unitive interaction between the mental and physical. In this mindbody system, what is happening in one is reflected - not caused - in the other. Mental Imagery was understood to be a divine language bringing together in consciousness the invisible world with the visible.  Imagery was recognized as the natural and true language of inner life. This sacred language, akin to the hieroglyphs gives direct messages and instructions to our physical body as to how to heal. 

Diane Cooper interviews Dr. Gerald Epstein, MD about an innovative therapy based in a form of mental imagery called Waking Dream Therapy. He explains that most of our difficulties are rooted in disturbed or disordered relationships of one sort or another. As the mind and body form a unity, the physical illnesses are expressions of these relational difficulties. For example, diabetes, may speak to bitterness in ones life. Colon issues to holding on or anger.Dr. Epstein uses the ancient science of face reading (morphology)and waking dream/mental imagery to help his clients to heal and transform. Two sample imagery exercises are included here.Dr. Epstein, a physician and psychiatrist apprenticed with Madame Colette Aboulker- Muscat of Jerusalem for nine years to learn this therapeutic technique.

Funded by OAM of NIH, and published in various medical journals in 1997

Dr. Epstein presents a brief overview of  the history of dreams & how to read the messages they bring to enrich your life. In contrast to Freud's limited understanding of dreams as mere wish fulfillments, every element of a dream reflects some aspect of the dreamer, so the dreamer is actually looking into a mirror. The language of dreams can be quite concrete and colloquial speaking in the vernacular. They reveal inner guides, problem solve, signal a health issue. "For example, if the dream takes place in the past, it pertains to the influence of the past on the present. For instance, if a man of 40 dreams that he is in high school at age 14 and meets his high school principal with whom he feels fearful, very likely in the face of authority he still responds as a 14-year-old rather than as a mature adult."