Nicholas E. Brink

The seven stories of Genesis, of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, were passed down orally by the storytellers of antiquity before they were recorded in the Torah and Old Testament. Their metaphorical nature gives them a much deeper meaning than if they are listened to as literal history. We have forgotten how to listen to them as the ancients listened. A group of five of us listened in the state of ecstatic trance, trance that revealed their deeper meanings. The first revelation revealed what Eve learned from eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, the dichotomy of good vs. evil. The endless list of such dichotomies with which we have lived for the last several thousand years: pain vs. comfort, love vs. hate, us vs. them, Israel vs. Palestine, etc., bring conflict and anguish to our controlling, patriarchal world. As we move into the New Age, we return to the matriarchal world of compassion and love, the world of such conflict dissolves, opening the gate for the return to the Garden of Eden.

So much can be learned about how to live a healthy and sustainable life by listening to the spirits of our ancestors and of the Earth. The spirits were a central part of providing direction in how our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived. If we open ourselves to these spirits and listen-through our dreams, and through trance, whether hypnotic or ecstatic-they can again become part of our lives. In Nicholas Brink's travels to Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, Peru, California, New York, and New Mexico, he discovered special places where the spirits became alive. While listening through ecstatic trance, these spirits come alive at the deepest level, and have taught him ways we can again live in a sustainable manner.Chronicling Brink's use of ecstatic trance Listening to the Spirits explores the destruction human beings have imposed upon the Earth and how we can hope to survive this coming apocalypse. In these ecstatic experiences Brink often finds himself as a young boy learning the shamanic ways of his tribe, seeing what is beyond his eyes and hearing what is beyond his ears.

Two tools of psychotherapy to access the unconscious mind are clinical hypnosis and dreamwork. Recently added to these tools is ecstatic trance as used by the hunting and gathering shamans, both ancient and contemporary, ways that open the doors to the hidden stories or narratives that need to be faced for healing the emotional struggles of life.Many of the myths that came from the collective dreams and trance experiences of the ancients are healing stories. One, the Nordic myth of Loki's Children, provides direction in the healing process for many of life's problems, the map for the healing journeys of three clients using their narratives from dreams, hypnosis, and ecstatic trance. The three children sired by the trickster god are dangerous monsters that threaten the Nordic pantheon of deities: Jormungand, a poison-spitting serpent, is thrown into the sea where it grows to encircle the earth to hold its tail in its mouth. The second child, Hel, whose body is half rotten with decay is thrown into the underworld where she suffers with remorse for the guilt of those who died dishonorably. The third child, Fenrir, a wolf of tremendous size who continually grows, is our obsessive thoughts and worries. This map of the psychotherapeutic journey to overcome this fear, guilt, and obsessive worry takes us into the unconscious mind and beyond into the universal mind, the world of the spirits for healing and personal growth. Each client finds the way to overcome these monsters to find innocence with the rebirth of Odin's beloved son Baldr.

Applying the Constructivist Approach to Cognitive Therapy goes beyond the traditional objectivist approach of uncovering the what of a client’s dysfunctional thinking by helping client and therapist understand why the client thinks in a dysfunctional manner. This unique work demonstrates how this thinking can be uncovered through dreamwork, analytic hypnotherapy, ecstatic trance, and other spontaneous trance experiences such as the use of imagination, free association, and guided imagery. Utilizing hypnotherapeutic techniques, the author shows how clients can reframe these thoughts to achieve a healthier, more functional way of thinking. Replete with case studies and practical guidance, this text will help therapists take clients beyond a simple resolution of their problems and offer an avenue to greater personal growth, maturity, and creativity.

Applying the Constructivist Approach to Cognitive Therapy goes beyond the traditional objectivist approach of uncovering the what of a client’s dysfunctional thinking by helping client and therapist understand why the client thinks in a dysfunctional manner. This unique work demonstrates how this thinking can be uncovered through dreamwork, analytic hypnotherapy, ecstatic trance, and other spontaneous trance experiences such as the use of imagination, free association, and guided imagery. Utilizing hypnotherapeutic techniques, the author shows how clients can reframe these thoughts to achieve a healthier, more functional way of thinking. Replete with case studies and practical guidance, this text will help therapists take clients beyond a simple resolution of their problems and offer an avenue to greater personal growth, maturity, and creativity.

Sharing the wisdom of shamanic healing, Nicholas Brink creates an accessible link between psychotherapy and the ritualized use of ecstatic trance postures. He explains how ecstatic trance triggers the imagery that allows us to override negative beliefs and retrieve the lost innocence of the soul. He shows us how to broaden healing beyond the resolution of individual emotional and behavioral issues to create harmony in family, community, society, and the world around us. Integrating cognitive behavioral therapy, narrative therapy, and dream analysis, the author provides a unique model for tapping into the universal mind in a way that feels familiar and safe. He illustrates five ecstatic postures for emotional and spiritual growth, moving from finding a place of relaxation in which to strengthen your sense of self to the soul retrieval experience, which leads to the death of dysfunctional beliefs and restoration of your original innocence. The author shows how spirit guides can support us as we achieve the spiritual consciousness of the shaman and recognize the interdependence of all cultures and all living things on the planet.

Early man ran with the animals, lived with the animals, and was one with the wild symphony of the natural world--a time fondly remembered as the Garden of Eden, or Idunn as it is known in Norse mythology. But as humanity shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of farming and cities, embracing the modern worldview of man's superiority over nature, we began ignoring our innate connection with the Earth. Now we are waking up to what we've lost, yearning to heal our relationship with the Earth and rekindle the oneness with nature. Drawing on the work of Felicitas Goodman, Thomas Berry, Ervin Laszlo, and other important voices calling for recognition of our connection with all life, author Nicholas Brink shows how ecstatic trance can return us to profound union with our Great Mother, the Earth. Sharing personal trance experiences of healing, spiritual connection, and divination, Brink shows how these practices enable us to create personal rituals to maintain oneness with all life. He reveals the spiritual power of being one with your environment and experiencing the spirits of everything around you. And, as we reconnect with the spirit of the Earth, we can once again experience the world not only as alive but also enchanted.

Connecting Norse mythology, ecstatic trance, the Universal Mind, and the dawn of a new age of peace and veneration for Mother Earth, Nicholas Brink reveals how we can use ecstatic and hypnotic trance to learn more directly and deeply from our distant ancestors, rediscover our extrasensory powers, and reclaim the original magical nature of humanity. The imminent rebirth of a peaceful, balanced, connected world was predicted in Norse mythology as the return of Baldr, the gentle and compassionate Nordic god of truth, healing, and rune work. Illustrating ecstatic trance postures to connect with the ancient Nordic people and their beliefs, to journey to exact points in time, and to access specific powers, such as seeing into our future, Brink explores humanity’s evolving cycle of consciousness from the era when the Great Mother goddess was the center of life through the transition to the worship of power and physical strength in the Bronze Age and the world of the Vikings. He explores the coming return of Baldr and the imminent new age of peace and respect for the earth. Through hypnotic divination, the author expands the stories of the early Nordic gods and goddesses from the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, in particular the fertility deities of the Vanir, such as Freyr, Freyja, and Idunn, who came before the warrior deities of the Æsir, such as Odin, Thor, and Loki. He details the epic battle of Ragnar?k and the birth, life, death, and rebirth of Baldr. Brink shows how these ancient stories happen outside of time, in the past, present, and future, thus Baldr’s return is replayed in our death-rebirth experiences of life, in each dawn, with each spring, and now with the birth of a new age that we see happening all around us. Through the power of trance at this time of rebirth, we move full circle to reclaim the magic of the earliest times, the times of the Garden of Idunn.

Over the millennia shamanic trance journeying has been used as a way of healing, of providing answers to questions, and of offering solutions to individual, family, and community problems. Though traditionally it was the shaman of the community who went on such journeys, the revolutionary work of the late anthropologist Felicitas Goodman shows that we all have these shamanic powers. Her research on the body postures found in ancient primitive art and in the practices of contemporary shamans offers each of us the ability to experience ecstatic trance journeys firsthand. A student of Felicitas Goodman and Belinda Gore, psychologist Nicholas Brink examines more than 20 traditional trance postures for divination, decision making, letting go of guilt and grief, healing of illness and emotional pain, spirit journeys, shape-shifting, interacting with animal spirits and the dead, and discovering past lives. Exploring the physiology and psychology of ecstatic journeying, he offers guidance for those with little or no experience as well as methods for longtime practitioners to deepen their practice and reclaim the extrasensory power of our ancient ancestors. Offering solid theories of how ecstatic trance triggers healing and spiritual development, Brink explains how trance journeying allows us to tap in to the collective unconscious, or Universal Mind, and access the information matrix of the Akashic field.