I am awestruck by the magnitude of the Universe and the small and magnificent part Earth has played in the great unfolding. I am compelled to do my small part to work towards the environmental protection of Earth and to work towards a paradigm of all species, including humans, belonging to Mother Earth rather than the Earth and all of her species belonging to humans. I am re-committed as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist to assist people in knowing how their language, beliefs, and stories create and perpetuate their relationships to themselves, to fellow humans, to other species, to the Earth, and to the cosmos. And, I find myself fixated on a statement made in class several times: "Never underestimate the power of story".1

It is nearly impossible for me to understand the many profound effects telling the Universe Story could have on people whose cosmological stories are outdated or even non-existent. I can only sit with my experience of it, being awed by the information shared, feeling the effects of "my story" shifting, and witnessing the sometimes dramatic effects the story had on my classmates: tears, anger, awe, joy, reverence and grace. And yet, there is a part of the story that from my perspective is still untold in the new cosmology class. It is a story that I have heard over and over again from researchers who present at conferences and who write books, and a story that I have heard repeatedly over the last twenty years as a therapist. It is part of a story that I heard again in a three- hour session with a fellow Wisdom University student on the Saturday after class.

On Thursday in class we were in the darkness of the cave classroom sitting in the glow of candlelight looking at our Milky Way galaxy of stars. The salt "stars " were spiraling out to represent our galactic home in the Universe. The teacher explained that the grains of salt on the floor represented only a small percentage of the actual number of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. During the discussion a fellow student asked the teacher about his opinion of the possibility of ET's and aliens from other places in the Universe. I remember that comology teacher intimated that it is unlikely that there are others out there.

The piece of the Universe story which for me was untold and a large piece of my reality of the Universe has to do with the non-physical and mystical dimensions of the universe. As a hypnotherapist and transpersonal psychotherapist I have been a facilitator and guide to many clients who have experienced near death experiences (NDEs), out of body experiences (OBEs) contact with dead relatives and loved ones, poltergeist experiences where things levitate and fly across a room, visitations by angelic beings and being abducted by alien beings. Some of my clients have conscious memories of these non-ordinary events others uncover their experiences while doing trauma recovery work in hypnosis and EMDR. In all cases, these experiencers, as they are called, have a very difficult time living with their experiences, especially because they are outside the reality of the cultural stories adopted as consensual reality.

Through my training in hypnotherapy and in regression therapy, I know the difference between leading a client into "false memories" by using embedded suggestions and manipulative language and facilitating a client with open-ended questions that allow a client to experience authentic inwardly generated responses. While I work with these clients I am very careful to use skills that keep my opinions and beliefs out of the session. I work with the clients so they can tell their own stories. Hearing their stories has deeply contributed to the way I perceive the Universe.

In the area of UFO alien abductions I have studied with therapists who specialize in working with abductees and I have attended many conferences focusing on UFO research, crop circles, and alien abduction experiences. Presenters at the conferences include retired NASA employees, physicists, psychiatrists, experiencers, and researchers. I have read many books written by these professionals and many by people who have had direct experiences with aliens. What is most interesting is that there are usually patterns that emerge. For the most part, these patterns correlate with the stories told to me by my clients. I share with you now one of these stories. The Universe Story in my world includes this additional chapter... a chapter which John E. Mack, MD and psychiatrist estimates is written by over three million American people who have contact experience with aliens. 2

I begin with my most recent client experience. I have permission to tell this person's story as long as his name is held confidential. I met this person in our New Cosmology class. I will refer to this person as "M to protect his identification and to support his anonymity. M wanted to speak with me after I introduced myself in class and shared that I do "ghost busting". He was intrigued with my introduction and asked me what I meant by ghost busting. A long conversation emerged. M had been looking for a person to work with for the last five years. He had an experience five years ago making a solo five hour drive home across two southern states the evening after New Years. While driving in the dark on a deserted freeway M experienced bazaar weather patterns. There was a repetitive pattern of thick fog and then snow flurries and then clear star-filled night sky. The fog appeared in strange formations. M noticed a fog bank that suddenly appeared in back of his car. While looking at the fog he had a clear thought, "I am going to see a UFO". Then he noticed a large silver craft that looked like a UFO hovering over the car while the car was still moving. There were red lights pulsating around the circular edges around the craft that were a color of red that he had never seen before and has never been seen since. One of the post-traumatic symptoms M has had for five years is feeling haunted by the red lights. Currently, he wears a ring that has a red stone which is a color of red which reminds him of the lights. He has also had other symptoms of post-traumatic stress since the sighting.

As M drove the car under the craft there was a deep humming sound and a noticeable vibration. He began feeling strangely... like his consciousness was being sucked out of his body. M struggled to stay present and conscious and pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped. He remembered getting out of the car to get a better look at the craft. The next thought M had was: "This is crazy. I might not be safe out of the car". He got into the car and felt like his memory was being taken away. He rehearsed mentally: "I want to remember. This really did happen. It is January 2 at 8:30PM. I really saw a UFO. I want to remember this". The craft suddenly disappeared and so did the humming and the sight of the red lights. M remembers feeling very odd, shaky and his body vibrated as he drove off knowing that something incredulous had happened to him. He mentally kept rehearsing that he has seen a UFO, feeling like the memory was being pulled away from him. He noted the time, date, and the place she was on the road so the experience could be imprinted into his now fuzzy thought process and memory. M also felt that he had to call someone to share his experience. Should he call the military, the police, or his family? Afraid that he would be thought of as crazy he called no one. M listened to station after station on the radio hoping that there would be a news report that someone else had seen the UFO as well. There were no other reports on the news.
Forever changed, M went back into his daily life. For days after the incident he experienced the residue of an oily or dirty smell that he associated with the sightings. He struggled to resolve and come to peace with the experience. He contacted MUFON, an organization that supports the education and research of UFOs and experiencers, hoping to find answers to his many questions. They told him to write down his experience. And they referred him to resources for education and support.

Five years later, M and I met in the New Cosmology class. We decided to do a hypnosis session together to help him recover more details of what happened during the UFO encounter. At my office we worked for three hours the Saturday after class. What he discovered is mind blowing and yet it explains a lot about some of his childhood experiences and previous thought processes and motivations. As I have done thousands of times before, I facilitated my client in going into a relaxed and focused hypnotic state. I invoked his higher Self, his wise inner guide, and asked that the information that he gleaned would be authentic and for his highest good. M responded beautifully to the regression and many details to what seem to be repressed memories emerged.

M remembered being lifted "out of his body" into the craft. He felt extremely cold. He saw a fog around him that he knew protected him from seeing the alien beings. He believed that the fog and the cold sensation were connected. This fog looked very much like the fog that he had seen while driving. He felt three beings close by and they telepathically communicated to him that they would not hurt him and that they did not want to frighten him. He saw what looked like a control panel on the edges of the inside of the craft but it was not like anything he had ever seen before. He also saw through windows that were concave shapes around the edges of the craft. He saw the back of the head of a small alien being sitting at the control panel. He felt a pressure on his arm and knew that some apparatus was attached to his arm and that they were monitoring him. He was shaking from being so cold and he knew that the beings were concerned about his body temperature. By escorting him by the arm they took him into another room in the craft. He became frightened that they were going to do some kind of medical procedure. They telepathically assured him that he would not be harmed. The fog continued to surround him. He continued to feel uncomfortably cold. He was astutely aware of an oily and dirty smell which he believed was coming from the aliens.

He was taken into a room and guided to sit down in a chair. As he sat, his arms were being held up by something attached to his wrists. He understood that his body was being monitored. (At this point in the hypnosis session, M's arms lifted and floated by his side for the rest of the session. They were suspended in a catatonic and immovable state for forty minutes.) The beings directed him telepathically to look out a window and "told" him that they were going to show him where they come from. The craft began to vibrate. He felt incredible pressure in his body while he peered out the window at what looked like a scene from Star Trek. He was whooshing past stars through space. The craft stopped and he saw, what they communicated to him, was their galaxy. They called the galaxy Andromeda. They communicated that they had been with him many times before and that now he was ready to remember the connection. They communicated that he was a descendant from the Andromeda galaxy. They communicated mentally that that there were going to be many changes and challenges on Earth and that there would be chaos. His work was to help people deal with the changes and the challenges. Then he experienced the craft vibrating again and had a sense of movement. They were bringing him back to Earth. They asked him permission to attach something to his wrist so they could be in communication with him. He agreed. He felt assured that he had agreed to the connection with these being and to the challenges and work ahead. He felt pressure on his wrist, but no pain. They informed him that they would be with him again.

The client described saying goodbye to the beings and then he was back in his car feeling his body buzzing and vibrating. The story continues here with the client rehearsing the day, time and place as he feels the memory, as he described "being sucked out of him". As he drove he wondered who to call and he listened to the car radio for reports of others seeing a UFO in the area.

The hypnosis ends here. I count the client back into an open-eyed state with suggestions that he will remember all of the experience consciously and that he can return to the hypnotic state again if he needs to get any more information. Finally, after forty minutes of floating up in the air, his hands and arms return to his side. M says he is tired but relieved to know what happened.

We talked about his experience. He commented on how in hypnosis information just came to him and how easy it was, even though he remembered the uncomfortable cold sensations and the fear of not knowing if he was safe being with the aliens in the craft. He began to make conscious connections with the abduction experience and other childhood memories.

After three hours of working together we said our goodbyes and agreed that the next time he was in the Bay Area we would work together again. I got permission from him to share our session in this paper.

Is M's story or his experience real or a metaphor? Was his space ship and ET experience a physical or another dimensional one? Does the universe "house" other beings who are in contact with us on earth? Are they physical beings? Can these beings really travel faster than light? In support of the validity of M's memories which have aspects that are like millions of other experiencer's memories, I believe there most likely is someone else "out there" or maybe they are "in here".

My personal version of Universe Story includes many elements of the mystical and non-physical: I believe in a Multiverse. I have been a student of parapsychology, UFOlogy and non-ordinary states of consciousness since I was sixteen years old. I have spent thousands of hours over the last thirty years with clients many of whom have had non-ordinary experiences. I have had many non-ordinary experiences myself. While the physical universe is ASTOUNDING in nature, the study of consciousness and non-physical realities are just as important to me as the material world. I live with a paradigm that embraces both the physical and non-physical. The non-physical includes mystical states, psychic phenomena, psychokinesis, contact and communication with the dead, the experience of past-lives, the state of consciousness prior to incarnation, and the existence of ETs. I also believe in the possibility of time travel and traveling faster than the speed of light, especially if traveling through other dimensions. M stated that he was taken "out of his body", which sounds very much like a non-physical OBE experience.

Why would I believe a story like the one that M tells me which is inconsistent with the known properties of the world? I believe his story and thousands of other stories that have emerged through my personal experiences as a guide to others who want to more fully come to terms with their relationships with non-ordinary experiences: experiences that are not limited to the known properties of physical reality of the universe but are real in perception sometimes through waking consciousness, sometimes through non-ordinary states of consciousness or some that seem mystical in nature. For instance: the US government spent years of research on remote viewing. Remote viewing is used for spying and defense. How can a person visit an environment in a non-physical way and see in detail the surroundings? There are currently remote viewing classes for the public available in the Bay Area taught by Dr. David Moorhouse who did remote viewing for the special operations in the US Army. With remote viewing people experience seeing with psychic eyes and being present in a non-physical body as they "see." In remote viewing experiments what the remote viewers see can be verified by senders on site at prearranged targets.

The Universe Story as I experience it, is multi-dimensional. The physical evolution of the universe is partnered with the evolution of the non-physical. I experience that we are eternal spiritual beings in physical bodies... multileveled consciousnesses expressed in physical and non-physical ways. As the Universe evolves and expands we, too are evolving and expanding in consciousness. My Universe Story includes the physical Universe and non-physical Multiverse, as well. My Universe includes physical and non-physical beings, the ability to produce psychokinesis where objects seem to defy gravity and levitate and the probability that one million Americans have had contact with alien beings who are interfacing with people on Earth. I hold what Ken Wilber, a modern day philosopher, would refer to as an Integral perspective, a perspective which honors it all.

In honoring and living in a Integral reality I am certainly concerned about the ecology of Earth, my present home. I do my very small part to honor her and to support ecologically sound practices: My home and two electric cars run on solar energy. I continue to assist people who work in therapy on creating an inner ecology so that their lives and hearts are focused on love rather than hate, fear and negativity. The Universe Story supports my commitment to living more consciously and in more harmony with it all.

1. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, 1992
2. http://www.ufoevidence.org

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Holly Holmes-Meredith is a Doctor of Ministry and a licensed Marriage family Therapist who trains hypnotherapists at HCH Institute in Lafayette CA. Learn more about hypnosis and its many therapeutic uses by reading her other blogs on Past life Therapy, Spirit Releasement Therapy, Manifesting your dreams and more.

Visit www.HypnotherapyTraining.com to learn about HCH Institute and its California state approved and registered certification trainings and classes for personal growth in hypnotherapy, energy therapy and parapsychological studies. And listen to her pod cast and samples of Holly's Hypnosis CDs which are available on-line.