Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

visions reappear. Entire armies marched before her eyes, battling nostalgic memories of a decadent, romantic way of life.Again and again the sweet dances of Vienna resurfaced for a few bars only to be trampled under the feet of anothercombative battalion of marching soldiers.Relentlessly this destruction continued through the second movement. She was haunted by a vision of ruined cities anddevastated landscapes. The melody of a broken merry-go-round playing on and on until it too broke off. A phalanx ofarmed men were mowed down by an army proceeding from the opposite direction.The slow third movement, a euphonious lullaby, apparently intended to show a new generation of children growing upwho survived this mayhem in some sylvan glade, almost made her angry.The long last movement confirmed the lies of the third and the horrors of the first two. A gigantic battle between good andevil, between classical beauty and the voracious war machines, ended in three final blows of the kettledrum: thrice dead.A fitting requiem for Europe.Alexandra, deeply shaken, remained unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. Beyond a heartfelt thank-you to Mrs.Dahl, she felt in no mood to talk about her experiences.During their last session with Dahl Alexandra finished her description of her meditation exercises including her new wayof letting spontaneous images arise. Dahl found this an interesting exercise, as it would allow him to reproduce thecontent of the subconscious in pictures while fully awake."But how do you induce your dissociation? How do you separate yourself from your body and split your personality inorder to fly?"This Alexandra could not describe. "I guess, because I experienced flying spontaneously once—produced by an extremecondition—I find it easy to slip back into this state. Maybe one has to have had a death experience to learn to fly, andagain maybe that is the reason why the initiation rites in Tibetan Buddhism and in all shamanic disciplines culminate in adeath experience."After she had reached the dissociated state what happened next? What was superposition?"My shadow-soul flies into an embrace with the patient. I don’t consider him a patient, he is a person who seeks help. Ilearned that I must not concern myself with the manifest symptoms of his illness, like the arthritic swellings or the skincancer, instead I have to heal the whole person.... I cannot describe what happens in terms of psychological terms, Ihave to use common language, which I, nota bene, borrow from the experience of a woman. I know no better metaphor,my shadow-soul makes love to the person. With the only difference that in lovemaking the embrace precedes thedissociation, which leaves a lifeless woman in the arms of her perplexed lover. The French call this ‘la petite mort!’"Alexandra laughed. "Maybe one should look at lovemaking as a healing process."Dahl blushed. "Alexandra, you are singularly outspoken and honest. Few people would admit such a complex ofemotions without dressing it up in some ‘higher’ garb. My religious informants speak of ‘partaking in God’s love,’ I preferyour analogy by far."Dahl shook his head and gave her an inquisitive glance. "Would you like to discuss your hunch that in many cases theemotional condition of the patient contributes to his illness and makes your healing possible?"Alexandra smiled. "I am primarily concerned with the question why I have no success in many cases, and how to selectpatients for healing. I notice that one trauma appears in almost all cases: the loss of an important reference personaccompanied by strong guilt feelings, a spouse, a lover, a mother. At times a serious, guilt-ridden emotionalestrangement may be sufficient. A few years later arthritis or cancer strikes. The person seems, subconsciously ofcourse, obsessed by a wish to die, associated by a deep, often carefully hidden, depression.—These cases I seem to beable to heal, provided the illness has not progressed so far as to have physically destroyed the body of the patient to thepoint of no return. Obviously, I cannot induce the self-regeneration of a completely cancer-ridden liver or bone system."She paused and eyed him. "Maybe one could study people stricken by cancer or arthritis and elicit the suppressedemotional origins of their illness. It should be possible to predict the probability of a person contracting cancer from sucha profile, and prescribe some course of action, for example, meditation exercises or psychotherapy to reduce theirchances of killing themselves through a breakdown of their immune system."Dahl very seriously said. "Bear in mind that such an investigation would be a terrible drain for the psychotherapist."He leaned back in his chair. "For some time now, I have been tempted to ask you how you deal with the emotionaldemands your healing work must make on you. I would imagine that the burden of stripping yourself emotionally to theextent you described would lead to serious symptoms of introversion or withdrawal. You show neither. How do youhandle your emotions under this kind of stress?"For the first time in their exchange Alexandra hesitated. An unexpected thought was taking hold in her mind. Were herblack visions and the irrational coincidences during her journey signs of emotional exhaustion?"I have not given these questions much thought." She said pensively. "I have been so excited by my discoveries that myemotional energies seemed boundless. But very recently I have had a series of disturbing experiences of clairvoyancewhich could be a sign of an overwrought psyche. You once referred to this as noetic engrandissement. In the past myway of dealing with my emotional problems has been to extrovert them spontaneously. I know no guilt. I act out my185