Spiritual Healing. Panic Attack Case. Part 2 (an original short story)
To read Part 1 of this story please click here
Part 2
The next day Paul had an attack. As usual, it came, tortured him for a set amount of time and then it retreated. Paul was still in bed, feeling very weak, sweaty and dirty. He made himself get up and take the shower. As the water ran down on his body, he somehow saw the situation with spiritual healing in another light. Not that he felt any noticeable conceptual difference, but he experienced a peculiar clarity in his mind. Mentally, he followed Madame B.’s introductory talk when she mentioned the inability of a spiritual healer to overcome a resistance imposed by a strong opposing believe system. At this time, her advice somehow made much more sense. He even imagined the opposing belief system as two magnets of the same polarity repelling each other. “You know, what,” he was drying his wet hair with the towel that Nikki passed to him, “I didn't think much of it during our first meeting, but thought of it now.”
Nikki rose her eyebrows. “Surely, I don’t believe all these…”
“All these what?”
“That voodoo stuff, she told me about….All these spirits, angels, demons....
But…,” Paul made a relatively long pause, during which he collected his thoughts.
“Does it really matter what I think?” This time, he was rather answering to himself than to Nikki.
“It really doesn’t, just as much as it doesn’t matter what other people think.”
“It does matter what other people think, darling”, Nikki retorted.
“Don’t get me wrong, in a sense that you mean, it does. It’s not like I am going to tell anyone. I don’t want any gossips and people looking weird at me. But on the other hand… think about it in a big way, does it really matter what they think of it or is it independent of their thinking?” Paul started to pace the room back and forth. “I would tell you more, does it really matter, in which way would the treatment works if it works? Why not give it a chance?”
“Sure. Give it a chance. That’s what Mariam told me.”
“That’s not what I mean!“ Paul looked at his wife irritably, as she wasn’t with him on the edge of his thought, “What does Mariam has to do with it? I mean, why not allow the possibility of this to happen? Is my purpose here to prove that whatever she (he meant Madame B.) believes in is wrong? What difference does it make if what she believes in is true? What if she has some special abilities that her belief system engages?” Paul’s mind ran through many historical examples when a strong belief made people do seemingly impossible things. “Why don’t I suspend the disbelief, just like I do while reading a book or watching a movie?“
“Yeah, all she asked you was to relax during the session. You were always good at relaxing. I’d say you are the champion at this” Nikki giggled.
Paul didn’t pay attention at her sarcasm. He was remembering that disgusting heat wave that advanced to his throat from solar-plexus, the feeling of fast approaching death, shook his head from side to side pushing the memory away and said out loud:
“If she could do something to fix my panic attacks, or, at least, lessen them to some degree, and tell me that I have to jump through the hoops like a circus tiger, I’d do it. All she asked me is to wear light color clothes, relax my mind and, for the course of the treatment, allow myself to believe in a possibility of astral travel and colored aura exist. Jez, for all I care, if necessary, I’d believe in Sana Clause!”
Since the time Madame B. heard Paul’s confession, it as if etched in her mind and kept on turning like an idle computer loop that misses some additional information in order to proceed to some meaningful execution. Especially noteworthy were his fear of and yet fascination with violence, and his disgust to rape. Of course, nowadays an intelligent and civilized person would be against these remnants of the past as well. However, in most cases, this would be a scholastic position, that is based upon an intellectualized conviction. In the case of Paul, this was something deeper, something innate or genetic, and in combination with his lack of self-confidence and self-abasement pointed to psychological trauma happened earlier in his life. As usual in this situation, Madame B. didn’t try to conceptualize anything. She only focused her attention deeper and deeper of on the root chakra level, letting her mind float, trusting that her intuition will reveal her the missing information. Then the vision has come. It appeared as frames of a movie, put together in the time when color film was first developed. The poor resolution made the events emerge as chunky and blurry. The place of actions was a room or a hall with a large table standing in the middle of it. A woman was splattered on a table top like a frog before dissection; her skirt rolled up, her milky legs spread wide, held by a man, who thrust himself inside her. Besides the two men who held her hands, there was a group of five or six of them, who waited for their turn while one of them drilled her between her legs. Once one man was finished the other one lowered his trousers and took his spot. The men cheered and laughed at a periodic strong thrust.
At first, the woman screamed and weaved with some resistance, but after a while, her own movements stopped (she must have lost her consciousness) and her body only moved by jolts of the man’s pelvis. The entire scene was tinted in brownish tone as on an impressionistic painting and only during exchanges Madame B. could notice liquid leaking from the woman’s perineum, dripping on a table and slowly adding to the milky white and red stain near the edge of the table.
“That’s it for today. Next time I will teach you how to meditate properly.” Paul noticed the Skype post from Madame B. at 9:50 am.
“How do you feel, honey? Better?” Nikki smiled with kind irony.
Paul actually did fell better, even though he couldn’t pinpoint what exactly felt better. He noticed something inside himself has changed. It wasn’t the result of today’s session alone but was somehow accumulated over the course of several weeks. When he thought, his thoughts didn’t run around the memory lane searching for the con and pro argument for his actions. His thoughts were very clear and now. ‘We are so comfortable in our cocoon of beliefs and are trying hard to wrap the events in its conceptual fibers. Only when the solution lies outside the cocoon and its insolvency jeopardize our very existence, we are ready to make a timid virtual step outside it.’
“I took a step, Nikki”, Paul smiled, “I stepped outside the cocoon.”
“Say, what?” Nikki rolled her eyes.
“Don’t go completely bananas on me, darling. I don’t want you to get more insane than you already are. What are you doing?”
“Never ask questions to which you already have the answers. Don’t you see? I am updating my resume.”
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It was my pleasure. Thank you for reading.