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    How Meeting Your Essence Prepares You To Cease To Exist
                               By
                     Ralph B. Allison, M.D.
                   Presented for a Course On
Hypnosis and Psychotherapy In the Treatment of Terminal Illness
                          Sponsored by
    The World Association of Eclectic Hypnotherapists, Inc.
                               At
                    Zacatecas, Zac., Mexico
                         July 6-10-2005     Ten years ago I retired from my psychiatric practice. Five years ago I moved to a village
where many retired couples live, including one I will call Jack and Jill. I met them at our senior
club's monthly luncheon, and we became close friends. Jack was one of those few men there who
loved a serious intellectual discussion. His wife tolerated this passion of his, but always stayed in
the background.
     In my practice, I had seen many patients who dissociated, which means they had created
numerous alter-personalities. Many of them also manifested a dissociated spiritual entity which I
called an Inner Self Helper, now known as the Allisonian ISH. I had written much of this in my
book, Minds In Many Pieces, and in 23 professional papers. I also had it all laid out in my
website, www.dissociation.com.
     There was no one in this village who seemed willing or interested in talking about such an
esoteric subject, so I never brought it up with any of my new friends. I was just a divorced
psychiatrist living with his dog.
     Then Jack became seriously ill with an infection of his gall bladder. The infection spread to
his entire body, and he went into a coma for a week, during which he was in the local hospital in
isolation. When I saw him there, he was near death from the infection, but was treatable with
massive doses of antibiotics. I knew he might die, but he slowly recovered. During his last few
days in the hospital, he was lucid and enjoyed my visits. With him having just come back from the
brink of death, I decided to introduce him to my information on the Human Essence.
     To clarify, what I call the human Essence has gone by many names over the centuries. In
ancient Greece, Plato called it the Rational Soul. Philosophers have said each human is made of
Body, Mind and Spirit. This is the Spirit part. Religions commonly call it the Soul. Dr. Ernest
Hilgard of Stanford University called it the Hidden Observer. In Mesmer's day, when it appeared
in highly hypnotized individuals in trance, it was called a Dual Personality.
     Please understand that it is not a Personality which is one term for the part philosophers
call the Mind, and Freud called the Ego. The Personality considers itself either male or female and
is capable of expressing a full range of emotions, such as lust, greed, anger, envy, etc. The
Essence has no gender identity and is incapable of emotional expression. In TV land, it is best
represented by Star Trek's Commander Data, as well as by Mr. Spock, when his Vulcan side is
dominant.
     In the course manual I had written what I had learned about the ISH. Those I had
interviewed preferred to be called the Essence of the person when treatment was completed. One
told me that it had been the Essence of this child before she was almost killed by her mother, and
that trauma caused the first dissociation, of the Essence from the Original Personality. After that,
the Essence took on the job of ISH, and acted as a Disaster Control Officer in order to keep the
child alive. The ISH manufactured and programmed many alter-personalities to run the body, after
it sent the Original Personality into safe hiding elsewhere.
     I became very curious about what each human's Essence did what it wasn't making alters.
So I quizzed several at length and wrote this material in that six-lesson manual.
     I felt that Jack could die at any time from his illness and so I wanted to let him in on what
I believed his Essence did for him. Since he was recovering physically when I first approached the
subject, I wanted to let him know his Essence was performing its primary duty, which was his
physical survival. So I told him his Essence obviously wanted him to live, as it could have caused
him to die of his massive infection.
     Due to our friendship, he was interested in learning more about his Essence. He returned
home to await his time to have his gall bladder surgically removed. I visited him weekly and gave
him a copy of my manual, "The Human Essence." (Which I have here.) He then spent much of his
time at rest studying what I wrote and discussing it with me when I came to visit each week.
     During that time, his wife, Jill, looked after him. But she also asked him to do physical
tasks around the house, which he could not do, as his gall bladder always hurt. This created
tension between them, since she was used to him doing the heavy chores around the house.
     After several months, his surgeon felt Jack was strong enough to have his gall bladder
surgically removed. He returned to the hospital for the surgery, which went fine. He then returned
home to recuperate from the surgery.
     During this time, I visited him weekly, and we spent the time discussing what his Essence
was and did, as described in the manual, which he studied between our visits. His wife was happy
with his progress, but always stayed out in the kitchen when I chatted with him in their living
room. She just didn't feel like being party to our discussions.
     One day I was driving through his area after lunch, and I had a strong urge to drop by and
see how Jack was doing. I parked and walked up to his door. He cheerfully greeted me, and we
sat down to chat. His wife was out shopping for the afternoon.
     He told me he had read through my manual twice and finally understood it. He recognized
times when he had listened to his Essence and had done better. He also mentioned how pleased he
was that, after his surgery, his wife had stopped her complaining about his lack of eagerness to do
physical chores. As he said, "I was always in pain before the surgery and couldn't do much. But
now I am not feeling the pain. Jill has been so much nicer to me recently and I am so grateful."
     Two things had been accomplished. One was his understanding of the role in his daily life
of his own Essence, which gave him reassurance and intellectual comfort. The other was the
resolution of the difficulties with his wife which his illness had created.
     After an hour, I left and drove home. Two hours later Jill arrived home to find Jack
unconscious in his chair. She called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. There his doctor
found he had suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. He died there three days later.
     Mutual friends of ours told me Jill felt terribly guilty because she was not home when Jack
became unconscious. She had not known I was there that afternoon and was the last person to see
her husband alive. As soon as I heard that, I called her and told her that I had visited Jack that
afternoon, emphasizing how happy he had been with her recent behavior toward him. I could
honestly tell her that he had completed his tasks here on earth, so he had been ready to go when
his blood vessels ruptured. She no longer needed to feel guilty about not being there to rescue him
from death.
     Jack had not been suffering all those months with a terminal illness and preparing to die. I
did not approach him to enable him to die happy, knowing what to expect. He was physically
getting better each day. But I knew he had come close to death, while in a coma, so a need to deal
with the question of mortality had to be on his mind. He could not deny that he had been close to
ceasing to exist. But our personal discussions were not about death and dying, but about his
experiences now and in the past as a living, thinking human being.
     Also, he did not already have a religious or philosophical belief system regarding what
would happen to his mind and spirit when his body gave out. I learned in my Hospice training that
one does not challenge a dying patient's long held religious beliefs on the subject of the afterlife.
Jack was open to new ideas, was already a friend of mine, so he was willing to learn what I was
willing to teach.
     In the workshop tomorrow, I will introduce you to the basic facts I believe to be true
about the Essence of both you and your patients. What does this have to do with hypnosis used in
psychotherapy?
     In hypnosis courses, the Unconscious Mind is commonly mentioned as a source of hidden
knowledge in patients. Most of the time when you are directly communicating with it, you are
talking to the patient's Essence. It's never unconscious, however. It is conscious 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. When you use automatic writing, it is often the Essence who is writing
answers to your questions.
     The Essence is your patient's memory manager. When you are trying to find out what
trauma the patient experienced, it is her Essence which places in her conscious mind the bits and
pieces of recalled traumatic memories she can handle at the moment.
     The Essence is the "still, small voice within" which every therapist needs to listen to while
doing therapy and which she wants her patients to listen to when making all-important decisions.
     There are certain visualization techniques which I learned to use in hypnotherapy which
can only be understood if one knows what the patient's Essence is capable of doing. If you don't
know it is there and what it can do, you will never try to use these techniques. I have used them
with success, and I want you to be learn about them in the workshop.
     In highly hypnotizable persons, the Essence can be most easily accessed. When you do,
you will meet your co-therapist for that patient. You will never regret working with the Essence
of your patients.
     Just what is the nature and structure of the Essence?
     The Essence is a fragment of The Creator's consciousness or "intelligent energy." Since
energy cannot be destroyed, it has existed forever and is eternal. It can only change in its nature
and functions and will always exist in some form or frequency. 
     It can operate completely independent of the human body. It is incapable of human
emotions and has no gender identity, so it has no need for neurohormones or sex hormones.
However, it is also the life energy system which sensitive people see as auras and chakras. Three
percent of it must stay in the body to keep it alive. Ordinarily, the Essence is totally alloyed with
the Mind or Personality, which it considers its "Charge." The Personality is also intelligent energy,
but it needs the physical body in order to function, as it needs the neurohormones for emotional
expression and sex hormones for gender identity.
     The Essence is much more experienced than is the Personality in solving problems of
living, and is the Personality's mentor. However, the Personalities of most of us won't accept its
advice and admonishments, creating more problems for ourselves.
     The Essence, being essential for the life of each human, operates in both the physical and
mental realms. These are some mental talents of the Essence of an adult.
1.   Communicates with all other Essences
2.   Memory Manager
3.   Anticipates immediate and long term results of action
4.   Fills in blanks in visual images, pattern recognition
5.   Sees where physical eyes cannot (blindsight)
6.   Provides inspiration to artists
7.   Negotiates differences with others
8.   Takes over body at times of crisis
9.   Talks out loud to its Charge
10.  Causes positive or negative hallucinations
11.  Provides full sensory reality experiences, i.e., Out-of-Body and Near Death experiences
12.  Can solve all problems on a case-by-case basis
13.  Knows the Life Plan of its Charge
14.  Knows sex of an unborn baby
15.  Can come up with a new solution to a problem instead of repeating an old one
16.  Shuts down the organism to cause it to cease to exist
17.  Causes Charge to fall in love with a specific person
18.  Gives intuitive push to avoid potential danger
                           Conclusion
     Why was it important for Jack to learn about his own Essence before it caused him to
cease to exist? He was not facing certain death, as far as his Personality knew. But his Essence
knew that his Life Plan was coming to its conclusion. He needed to know he had a Life Plan, and
that he had a very capable Essence to guide him in living it through. Once he became acquainted
with that part of him which was eternal and perfect, he could then let it guide him wherever he
might go next. We all have the same sort of guidance inside us, if we will only listen to it. It is
there to help us help others and complete our own Life Plans.