In a way, it is best to simply be aware of it as it spontaneously arises. Although some are far from agreeing with our views, despite their occasional impulsive intolerance, the meetings were very fruitful and successful in disseminating the sacred mirror of thoughts. Meanwhile, I had been in correspondence with Randolph, and when we met in the beginning of 2007, we both felt that we knew each other quite well. To make a long story short, stretching over a decade, short, I am happy to say that this friendship has continued ever since and has been the greatest experience in my life. It was during our first meeting that we agreed on the sequence in which I was to translate his works into English.  #RyanPhillippe  1 of 34

Proper names are more apt to be forgotten than any other content memory. In the forgetting process, our mind is packed with so much information, and sometimes overloaded that it becomes easy to forget the names of people. After one examines exhaustively the phenomenon of temporary forgetfulness through the observation of certain peculiarities, which, although not general, can, nevertheless, be seen clearly in some cases. In these, there is not only forgetfulness, but also false recollection; he who strives for the escaped name brings to consciousness others—substitutive names—which, although immediately recognized as false, nevertheless obtrude themselves with great tenacity. The process which should lead to the reproduction of the lost name is, as it were, displaced, and thus brings one to an incorrect substitute.  #RyanPhillippe 2 of 34

Now it is my assumption that the displacement is not left to psychic arbitrariness, but that it follows lawful and rational paths. In other words assume that the substitutive name (or names) stands in direct relation to the lost name, and I hope, if I succeed in demonstrating this connection, to throw light on the origin of the forgetting of names. They called them Painted Ladies—those delicate antiquated Victorians gussied up in bright colors, held together by witch craft, and supernatural forces. Conflicts inspire restless spirits and that is not surprising. Who knows how man specters haunt the grand mansion. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 34

 

The twists and turns into a dark labyrinth of possibilities. The impressive structure built by San Mateo Country Assemblyman James Coleman in 1880 cost $100,000.00 ($2,477,616.74)—a fantastic sum in those days. Legend has it the mansion was to be a gift for his lovely wife, the former Carmelita Nuttall, a woman described by contemporary newspapers as “peerless in beauty and accomplishments.”  #RyanPhillippe 4 of 34

The mansion was nearing completion when a tragic event occurred that cast an evil shadow over the place for more than a hundred years. James Coleman returned from a business trip to the San Francisco hotel suite he shared with Carmelita. Though it was 5am, the dutiful young wife rose from bed and proceeded to unpack his bags. Somehow, as she was removing a gun from his valise, Carmelita accidentally shot herself. It is said that the distraught bridegroom never set foot in the Peninsula palace that had only just been completed. The house changed hands several times over the years, no one lingering long. In 1906, a young woman ended her life in the mansion by hurling herself headlong down a steep stairway.  #RyanPhillippe 5 of 34

Yesterday’s Victorian elegance has been to acquire a resident ghost as well. The Legend of Carmelita is still very real. Carmelita Coleman was a loved (and feared) member of the community. The romantic tradition of her tenancy has grown with the years, sparked by some very vivid experiences. Over the last century, there has been stories of shimmering lights, unexplained footsteps and pets that refused to enter the building. Generations of children have told of a glimpsing the wraithlike figure of a woman dressed in green. Some say the woman herself is green. One entire class saw the apparition. Ken Coale: I was awakened at 3am one Summer morning by the sound of footsteps. The footsteps seemed to come from the room just above me on the second floor. I lay there absolutely petrified.  #RyanPhillippe 6 of 34

Finally, I forced myself to track the sounds, as they grew louder and louder, while I climbed the stairs. Just then, I reached the landing, a door opened before me. I entered the door and it slammed shut behind me. The room from which the footsteps had seemingly been coming from was empty, and the only window was closed. It was a forty-foot drop to the ground below, no fire escape, and no indication of anyone having taken that exit. The house was quiet now. Whoever or whatever had been there was gone.  #RyanPhillippe 7 of 34

The next night, I encountered the apparition. This time the green lady confronted me in the long black hallway, the scent of sandalwood and jasmine and vanilla was present, but I was all alone. I pressed the button to turn the light switch, but nothing happened. Me and the ghost stared at one another for a few very long moments. Then the vision simply disappeared. No one has ever been hurt by the ghost, it must be a benevolent one. If people do not believe the mansion is haunted, I just tell them to wait a year and then report back to me.  #RyanPhillippe 8 of 34

I was fortunate enough to arrive there at the beginning of a new era in psychiatry and urged my assistants to learn and test them in the mansion. There is mystical significance in the very greenness of the ghost. In ancient times, emerald symbolized eternal life, youth, and prosperity. I was the first orthodox psychiatrist to open the staff meeting at the mansion. When we held a séance at the mansion, in the presence of fifty people, it was impossible to describe how I felt when I entered the ranks of this enthusiastic group. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 34

I was covered in Versace, looking like a fresh prince, flexin’ through the projects. Them people thought I was illuminati. I repeat what I have often stated in the past—namely, that no such group of psychiatric workers ever existed before or since. Under the benevolent, but penetrating eye of Herr Direktor all of us worked zealously and assiduously. All gold everything. Got a ring on every finger, diamonds flooded in this mansion like it is raining. Say, the flow out here is solid, smoking hydrofonics. In the presence of some fifty people, a voice speaking through the San Francisco medium Macelle Brown introduced herself as the original owner; and related a heretofore untold tale of an unhappy marriage, a lover, a very jealous husband and a murder—her own. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 34

Then, to everyone’s surprise, another ghost slid through claiming to be Carmelita’s father Reuben Randolph Nuttall, but was dismissing her story as hogwash. “Why should I not be here?” he demanded to know. “It was my money that built the place, not James Coleman’s!” R.R Nuttall then explained that he visits the mansion from time to time to note the modern improvements and watch the kids. He enjoys children, likes progress, has no messages and wishes no one ill. What really happened? How will we ever know when even the ghost themselves cannot get their stories straight. These particular hallucinations could be perceived only by this particular patient. They told the struggles of his wrecked individual mental life at 920 Peninsula Way, Menlo Park, California 94025. Dr. George H. Kirby, former director of the New York Psychiatric Institute, later designated as “Interpretative Psychiatry.”  #RyanPhillippe 11 of 34

These people value sexual pleasure above all else, and at sexual disturbances merge into utter despair which strangely contrasts with their resignation at the peril of losing their lives. One of my colleague’s patients once told him: “For you know Sir (Herr), if that ceases, life no longer has any charm.” I refrained from imparting this characteristic feature because I did not wish to touch upon such a delicate theme in conversation with a stranger. However, I went still further; I also deflected my attention from the continuation of the thought which might have associated itself in me with the theme “Death and Sexuality.”  #RyanPhillippe 12 of 34

I was at that time under the after-effects of a message which I had received a few weeks before, during a brief sojourn in Trafoi. A patient, whom I had spent much effort, had ended his life on account of an incurable sexual disturbance.  I must recognize in this process the influence of a motive. There were motives which actuated the interruption in the communication of my thoughts (concerning the customs of these people, etc.), which later influenced me to exclude from my consciousness the thoughts connected with them, and which might have led to the message concerning the incident in Trafoi—that is, I wanted to forget something, I repressed something.  #RyanPhillippe 13 of 34

They remind me (after the form of a compromise) as much of what I wished to forget as of what I wished to remember, and show me that my object to forget something was neither a perfect success nor a failure. The nature of the association formed between the lost name and the repressed theme (death and sexuality, etc.), is also very strange. It includes an essential dimension of the human experience that often is completely overlooked or only dimly intuited during meetings.  Although all of life’s expressions are officially sacred, clients often use words like sacred or essential to describe the extraordinary wholeness and intimacy that arises while being together.  #RyanPhillppe 14 of 34

During gazing they sometimes report contacting an unknown sense of wholeness beneath or behind their sense of lacking something. Some report that what they fear as groundlessness or emptiness shows itself to be an authentic ground or core as they participate in the quiet looking. Over time, many clients’ feelings of isolation, alienation, and disconnection gradually transform into an intimate connection with life. When clients let go into the imagined terrors of abandonment, engulfment, or fragmentation while sustaining this intimate contact with their doctor, they often eventually discover a greater sense of freedom and authenticity.  #RyanPhillippe 15 of 34

I have not seen ghosts, but I have surely felt their presence. One even accosted me at the nude beach in Santa Cruz. It was the scariest night of my life. It began on another, far pleasanter evening. At a crowded Tahoe restaurant, a friend and I shared a table with another couple, Bill and Vivian Marraccino. The usual get-acquainted question, What do you do? led to surprises for everyone. There is this haunted hose down in Santa Cruz—all kinds of stuff happens there. Things fly around the room, lights go on and off. The corsscurrents of the self-image or ego will distort the clear mirroring of being. #RyanPhillippe 16 of 34

It is important to be aware of any feelings of inflation or needs to be idealized, and to honestly investigate what many feel unloved, unaccepted, devalued, or lacking within our self. The ego will tend to appropriate the sacred mirroring function as a special skill. It is humbling to discover that this capacity is inherent in all individuals. Not surprisingly, the less attached to and identified with sacred mirroring we are, the more freely it functions. He looks so picturesque in his old rain slicker and cap that a new guy—Jim Hilburn, an engineer—tried to photograph him. Jim got quite close to what he thought was a flesh and blood, if a bit eccentric man. Then as he focused his camera, the old sailor faded away. #RyanPhillippe 17 of 34

Sacred mirroring also enhances ordinary mirroring. Once I and my clients are connected in an expansive space, they may approach the contents of awareness with much more clarity and intimacy. The conditioned body and mind is more easily seen to be what it is. Core beliefs are seen as thoughts instead of gospel truths. Shameful and frightening feelings are more readily accepted and allowed.  Then there is a window. The window that does not exist. Other guest have often observed a lighted window on the hill above the water. It really surprised me the first time. I could not remember any buildings in that area. I thought it was just a barren hillside with nothing on it. #RyanPhillippe 18 of 34

Sensations are explored with less resistance. The contents of awareness—thoughts, feelings, and sensations—come into clearer focus as I and my clients consciously share the ground of being. There is a greater sense of welcoming whatever arises in one’s awareness. Even on a sunny day, the place looks like a setting for a Gothic horror story. The Coast Highway winds its way through deserted stretches of hills and sea. The narrow road wound downward from the highway, twisting and turning around and rolling, mound-like hills.  #RyanPhillippe 19 of 34

As I approached the isolated farmhouse, I felt that I had stepped back in time a hundred years. Given the profound value of sacred mirroring, it is natural to want to know how to attain or achieve it. If any house looked haunted, this one did. Trying to be present, open, and available is like trying to make the Sun rise (or the Earth turn)—it happens on its own. The effort to become a sacred mirror takes one farther from it. Trying to be a sacred mirror is like standing in our house and asking how to get home. We already are there. The tall two-story structure was like some lonely sentinel, a mute survivor. Of what, I wondered: penetrating fog and sea eagles certainly. But what else?  #RyanPhillippe 20 of 34

Attuning with being or presence is a matter of nonmental understanding, which in turn allows a deep letting go. Efforts may be made to understand, to quiet the mind, to fix or purify something that we imagine is wrong or missing. In the end, however, effort is discarded. There is literally nothing to do to be present. It is enough to notice when we are not present. Eventually, we come to realize that what we are looking for is the one who is looking. The search comes to a natural stop and we simply recognize what we already are. We discover that we have always been the sacred mirror that we have been trying to become.  #RyanPhillippe 21 of 34

What is the inner felt-sense of functioning as a sacred mirror? Subjectively, there is an enhanced capacity to be with whatever arises within oneself or within another, including the resistance to what is arising. I do not believe that anything is wrong or missing from you. Things are relatively quiet now—those footsteps, they are not much. They happen so often; I would not get any rest at night if I ran downstairs to check every time we heard them. And the doors slamming by themselves, that is nothing. They do it most every day, some even open by themselves.  My bottles of wine dance around a lot and we hear the sound of crystal shattering, but never find anything broken. #RyanPhillippe 22 of 34

This experience of being together or sacred mirroring often evokes the sensation of a vast space. Some have reported commonly feeling sensations of dropping, opening, or deepening into a more expansive awareness. The atmosphere of the house had grown heavy and oppressive. I had a sense of danger, an emotion that I would rarely experience in the other houses. A baby was whining softly, cowering a chair. There has been something evil in this house—murder and incest. I see an angry man who dominated his children. They were virtual prisoners here. I think we have entered into a core of the Victorians’ wounds or contractions, even as we retain a sense of feeling or space around us.  #RyanPhillippe 23 of 34

Such moments are very intense and poignant experiences for me, I may cry or even subtly shake. It feels as though love is entering hell. It is clearly a shared experience because most of the guest can directly sense that I have joined them in their inner World. A girl named Gwendolyn did disappear mysteriously while visiting her uncle, who owned the place. That was in the very early 1900s. No one ever heard from her again. A skeleton was dug up when someone decided to put in a barbecue pit. Thinking that we might have tapped into an old Indian burial ground, we called in an expert from UC Santa Cruz, he reported that the bones were those of a woman buried eighty to ninety years ago.  #RyanPhillippe 24 of 34

Over time, this intimate yet spacious joining in the wound melts my feelings of separation that is the core of their suffering. It is as if compassionate awareness penetrates the contraction of the Victorian’s private World. These moments of shared suffering often prepare the ground for opening into a lighter and more transparent shared space. It was nearly midnight as the séance broke up. John and I walked out into the black night. A thick fog was creeping in from the sea. John said he felt something behind him and was scared. I felt certain that the evil presence meaning the house had attached itself to me.  #RyanPhillippe 25 of 34

Sick with terror, I stood shivering in the damp sea air—uncertain whether to continue on in the dark or go back into the afflicted house. Such undefended contact may be unbearable for many, evoking intense feelings such as fear, shame, or rage, and the belief that they are a failure. Or they may simply experience xenophobia. It requires a deep trust in oneself to be so open. Being together can also evoke some very unusual visual phenomena. Some often report shits in their visual field. They may see their host’s face begin to dissolve so that only the eyes remain. #RyanPhillippe 26 of 34

Light may appear around the head or in the one. One of my guest from time to time experiences everything turning into white light. Light and dark fields may reverse so that it appears that one is looking at a photographic negative. More rarely, guests have reported other faces being superimposed upon the therapist and wonder if they are viewing past life images or their own projected shadow selves. These shifts so that clients also report feeling like their own bodies are expanding or dissolving. More than one, clients have described these phenomena as psychedelic. #RyanPhillippe 27 of 34

Interestingly, doctors will often have a parallel experience with their clients. While these experiences are unusual and at times unsettling, they are significant and unique. They may be viewed as by-products of the awareness that unfolds from the natural intimacy of being together. A heavy wind seemed to come up out of nowhere as we crossed the Santa Cruz mountains, making it difficult to keep the car on the road. I began to see flashed of light like bolts of lightning and blobs of white energy. There seemed no doubt that some evil presence was pursuing us.  #RyanPhillippe 28 of 34

Some of that apprehension dissipated in the familiar atmosphere of my apartment. The streaks were gone, the blobs were gone, yet I could not rid myself of the feeling that I was not alone. Many times in the days that I followed, I glanced up from my typewriter, certain that someone was looking over my shoulder. Had I picked up a spectral hitchhiker? I recalled the story of Lu, a woman who had visited the farmhouse with her boyfriend, a longtime friend of the Edwardes’s. Lu has felt so uncomfortable in the hose that she had left almost immediately. #RyanPhillippe 29 of 34

At home, Lu experienced a sense of possession. Again and again she heard the words, unfinished and unburied. She saw a vision of a man and large searing white spots. Slowly as the days passed, the sense of being watched diminished. I was alone again—really alone—and very glad of it. It was all imagination I decided and was beginning to believe it. And then one evening Nick called talking about her heard howling sounds coming from the house. The upstairs window of a darkened bedroom was illuminated and above the living room—where the séance had taken place—were round blobs of light and sometimes lightning-like bolts.  #RyanPhillippe 30 of 34

Some nights I wonder what they were doing down at the nude beach—but so far, I have not had the nerve to go to purgatory and find out. The experience of sacred mirroring or being together is soft yet potentially provocative. It is important to rely on intuition as well as common sense as to when and with whom one introduces it. It should not be used with highly disturbed clients. Be particularly cautious with clients who have experienced narcissistic invasion or boundary violations of any kind by primary caretakers. Since this approach induces a remarkable level of intimacy, certain clients can easily misperceive it as a fearsome invasion.  #RyanPhillippe 31 of 34

Since my private practice does not include clients diagnosed with low or midlevel functioning personality disorders, I cannot draw any conclusions about working with these populations. Common sense would dictate being extremely cautious about introducing this process to them. However, there may be special potential in gradually and safely introducing this kind of contact with clients diagnosed with a schizoid personality disorder, since their issues center around their sense of isolation and difficulty making contact with others.  #RyanPhillippe 32 of 34

Above all, it is important for professional to be at ease within themselves and sensitive to their client’s responses and reaction. It is generally best to begin with very short intervals of quiet contact and then leave plenty of time to talk about what happened afterwards. As trust builds, longer intervals of contact can be sustained. I had not had any damaging experiences with this process; however, a few clients have found it to be either too intense, temporarily unsettling, or unproductive. Many and diverse relations to the name contained in the repressed theme, but was lost through it in the reproduction.  #RyanPhillippe 33 of 34

Its substitution was formed in a way to suggest that a displacement took place along the same associations regardless of the sense and acoustic demarcation. The names where therefore treated in this process like the written pictures of a sentence which is to be transformed into a picture-puzzle (rebus). No information was given to consciousness concerning the whole, instead of the proper name, was thus changed to the substitutive names. At first sight, no relation is apparent between the theme that contained the proper name and the repressed one which immediately preceded it. What a Bohemian Rhapsody in this Queen (Anne Victorian). #RyanPhillippe 34 of 34