Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Today on supernormalize, I talk with John Koenig. We had a lot of trouble with technical issues in the past, but we finally got there and the episode turned into being a deep one. We had to record on Zoom. So I apologize for the recording quality in comparison to the other episodes that are out around now. But all up, it was a great interview. He actually is a trained hypnotist and he works as a past life regression facilitator, author and instructor who has dedicated decades to exploring the mysteries of reincarnation and personal transformation. He's also created a deck called the Universal Mind Map Oracle meditation system. And during each time that we tried to set this up, we kept on getting patience because like, it was like, you have to stay patient with this because for whatever reasons, it was just really odd tech issues. So it all worked out in the end. It's a great interview. We talk deeply about hypnosis, hypnotherapy, how that can help you when you actually do past life regressions and the benefits of doing hypnotherapy for basically any sort of issue whatsoever. So I'm sure you'll enjoy and on with the show. Welcome to Super Normalized John Koenig. John, it's been quite an adventure to get here and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. You're a decades experienced hypnotherapist. Hypnotist. You've worked with so many people, you've done past life exploration, hypnosis, and you've also created a card deck that actually helps people to find their way. Fan life. I'm going to ask you to start the show with pulling a card so we can see how this one's going to go.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: I did randomly before we started, before we. We've gone back and forth trying to set this up. This is our third attempt to record and I think the last one was Patience that I picked before we discussed.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: So what I picked today was my card number 10, which is spirit School.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: The way I got these is I. I went on ChatGPT, one of my friends these days, and I asked it for 64 principles that human beings have to master if we're to evolve individually and as a species. And I took these principles, made cards out of them, and I wrote the text.
These are 64 principles. They're pretty basic things. But Spirit School is the notion that our purpose here as souls is to grow.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: And this came from philosophy, psychology, self help, religion, and most religions have the idea that you have to grow spiritually. You know, you do acts, you pray, you connect. So that's fundamental to what humanity has this determined is best for people individually and as. As a whole. So, and everything in our context today in Spirit School idea, we're learning and growing that everything literally that happens, in my opinion, is kind of meant to be divine. There are no coincidences. Many people believe in, In God's world, which we live in, including our exciting drama. Get it here. Yes.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Well, I find that, you know, that is just right on point for what we're. We're going to be doing today. Now, I was going to ask you around about the understanding of Spirit School and our personal evolution itself. You've seen a lot, you've been through a lot. You've also had a chance to, would you say, like, digest the understanding over time. Now, one thing that's confounded me about how we're here is that, well, God, the experience of God, or whatever you want to call that is, is all knowing anyway. Why would it even want to split up into little sections like us and then re. Experience itself? What's the point?
[00:03:36] Speaker B: That is fascinating. I had had the perspective for a long time that who we are is little bits of deity separate from deity. And I first got this notion, I don't know where I got it from. And it was discovered recently that Edgar Cayce, that American psychic and spiritual person, had the exact same notion.
But I remember hearing from Werner Earhart back in the old. If anybody listening remembers the EST training that was huge here. I don't know if that was being in Australia, but he said the idea was that God was lonely and a little bored. So God split itself apart and to create this game called life for entertainment and for. And for evolution. And that kind of works for me, you know, that each of us is separate from deity. Part of most definitely. You know, if God is everything, I think it was Einstein that said God's either everything or doesn't exist. And to believe that God is all. All that there is.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah, look, I agree with that too. I believe God is everything. I've experienced that myself as going through meditation and deep connection and deep connective sort of experiences over time. And to me that, that seems like the, the, the only truth that there is. Yes. But I still find it fascinating that it split itself apart and has this.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Fascinating delusion or we, we split ourselves apart.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: People talk about. They'll say my soul. Correct way to say, you know, if I am soul, it's my body now, my personal personality, my mind. Who I am is soul having this, you know, experience. Is John Koenig, this elderly guy in America.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Let's delve into your past life exploration and hypnosis experience. Now, what do you find the most profound benefits for someone who actually embarks on the journey of their own past life exploration?
[00:05:24] Speaker B: That's a great, great question. And the card that I picked, I'll say we pick randomly that as you begin to look at yourself having been here before, I believe my experience. Each of us as soul choose our circumstances. We choose to incarnate for lessons that we've been here many, many, many times. We'll be here many, many, many more times, each of us working on things. If a lesson is unfinished, we get to come back. If we choose and do it, do another. Another whack at it. So if you begin to. So this deepens my experience, the perception that everything is divine serendipity, that everything is spirit school, that we're here to learn that literally nothing happens in the universe by accident. You know, on a personal level, I had the experience. Well, I've had many experiences. I'll skip the specifics where you look at it and say, was that a bad thing? Because in time it seemed like a horrible thing. But it turns out this Lear included in there.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Plus the fear of death. I am not looking forward to the process of dying. There's usually some discomfort involved. What's on the other side of it has no fear for me whatsoever. Because I regard myself as a spirit. That's right. Now that I've been. I've been an African shaman. I've been a slave boy in Georgia. I've been females, I've been victims, victimizers. And this is just one little expression of my learning. That's how I look at it at least. And I think most people that do what I do have that perception.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with that perception. And in my experience of past life regression work that I've done, it gave me a greater understanding of who I am today because it put into perspective a lot of the core beliefs that I have that I live now and I didn't. When I was going through the experience, I'm like, what? This is so bizarre. I'm a French girl in, you know, the Middle Ages in an orphanage. What, you know, how. How does that work out? And, you know, and the experiences that she went through and how she experienced life is exactly on point for how I experience parts of my life today. And I thought that was so fascinating. And I Didn't expect to have any visions like that whatsoever. I went in as a willing participant to understand it more and came out the other side of it with a greater understanding of myself.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: If you look at the COVID of my which is my autobiographies, you see three heads. One is my black shaman. One is, believe it or not, my wife's in this current life's wife. But even as a regular person, I have. I have two heads. There's the rational John, there's the logical John, and there's this other John. And the logical is probably misplaced it, Skeptical John. There's no way to know if I really was all these things because you get corrupted. And this may have been my subconscious, like with your French girl. There may have been some part of you that developed a scenario, an experience, a rich experience that shed insight into what you're dealing with currently. Same with me. I can't really know. I always mention in these interviews the work of Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia Division of Perceptual studies, who studied 3,000 or so children, little people under five in different parts of the world who had experiences that their parents brought to his attention. And he researched those. He documented them. He found things like you were a butcher in this village and you cut your fingers off one day and autopsy showed that, you know, you were shot in a bar fight. And autopsy of that person you identified on that street shows that. So Stevenson and people that are in Virginia kind of look a scance at what I do. And I have to agree with him. I believe my experiences were real and I'm inclined to believe yours are real, but I can't really know. And as people get into this work, you go into it like it's like it and seems real, but you really, at some level, you know, who knows? And yet I've had clients in the office get incredible breakthroughs.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Doesn't matter.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: It doesn't matter. What matters is, is the result for sure. Can you share the moment or experience that first sparked your deep interest in past life, Past life regression?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: I'm delighted to. I had. Had done past with clients when they would ask me to. I never advertised it. I was getting medical referrals. I didn't want to appear, you know, and I wasn't that interested. Literally was not interested. But a friend of mine's wife was doing this work and I went to her just out of curiosity. By the way, in spirit school, one of the fundamental principles is curiosity. Yeah, what is. What's going on here? So I went to Her. And I don't know how she did it. She did not do a traditional hypnotic regression induction. But suddenly I am Private Riley in the First Continental Dragoons, the United States during the Revolutionary War. And I felt my mouth, I introduced myself, started as Corporal Riley, but then I, I amended it. Private Riley was a pretentious little man. He owned a silk shirt like the officers. And the experience was so vivid and that I, I, I had to be interested, you know, and I, I found myself, you know, one of the things about this, and it's my first experience, was telling. I had a message to bring to my captain and I was filled with self importance. I'm going to go deliver this message. And I went to this large sort of mansion, you know, if you think about a typical colonial United States, you know, columns and things. And I, I give the guard at the door, I need to talk to the captain. And he says, no, I'll take it. I'm crushed that that's happening. This was my mission here. I am chosen for this. But looking around the room, there was something weird in my life. In this life, I have never been in a large ballroom lit by candles. And there was something about the way the lights look. I said, oh my God, that's what that is, that's candles. Many times in the work that I've done, my own personal explorations, I had these experiences. I'm working on the pyramids. I was a landowner and I got in trouble with the authorities and I ended up being drafted to do the pyramids. And I'm pushing these huge bricks, some people pulling, some of us are pushing and we have tree, tree trunks, rollers. And I noticed there's something green on there at the time. I don't know what it is. It was palm leaves. They used palm leaves in my experience to, to grease up the rollers so they were more smooth. And I did a little bit of research and that is one of the possibilities people that, how they did it, that kind of thing is telling.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah. What is it is, yeah, it's, yeah, yeah. We're definitely connected to everything. So for someone that's curious but skeptical, how would you describe the process of accessing past lives? And is that something that anyone can do or is that something they should be guided and assisted in?
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good, that's an excellent question. Recently I had somebody, they sent me an email actually on Facebook, and they asked me for a recommendation of a book so that their son could do a past life with them. I teach a course in HYPNOSIS I train hypnotists and it's only a 100 hour course, but we don't even discuss regression until the last 20 hours by yourself. It's possible. I, I, I, people had spontaneous experiences, suddenly they're there. But I would find somebody who, who does what I do. And there are lots of us, including there's a wonderful woman in Australia called Tony Riley. There are people that do this work. And so you go to somebody like me or, or her or somebody else and you know, it's, you sign up and you're guided into a, through, typically through an induction into trance. And in trance you're alert, you know, you know where you are, but it doesn't really matter. And your subconscious is, is accessed. The definition of hypnosis is to bypass the analytical mind into the subconscious. Past life memories live probably in the superconscious at a level below. So what the hypnotist does is it guides you. And there are different protocols that we use. And then suddenly we ask you to look around. Where are you? Are you alone or with somebody? Is it day or night? What does your body feel like? Are you male, female, are you healthy, are you young, are you old? And what's going on emotionally? And from that point you then move the client toward events that are significant. And it's a, it's a, I'm in awe whenever I do this with somebody because suddenly they're there, they're back in their France and they were a young woman in an orphanage. And it's like, oh my God. And you can tell that they're getting something out of it. You know, I have seen miracles. People have been. By the way, here's another benefit of this work. People have been in therapy for years and years and years and something's not moving. Sometimes it's a past life, usually it's your current life. Usually it's what happened to you in childhood up to age 7 or so that, you know, created who you are. But sometimes it goes back. And I've had people pop, you know, 10, 20 or more years in psychotherapy, pretty much getting nowhere. And then suddenly one session and everything comes together.
That's another benefit for doing this thing, you know, Another benefit is finding out if there are people in your life that you've been with before. A lot of that is just curiosity though, you know, it's either the main ways of benefiting are spiritual growth or psychological. Appealing.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, like it seems like this tool in itself. When you're ready for it. It's like you become aware of it, and then when you use this as a method, it puts more understanding around the puzzle pieces that make us up.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Now, in a bit of reverse interviewing, you've had more than one experience. I think I listened to several.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Like you said, you. You know, spring chicken. Neither of mine. So now, if these experience aren't literal past lives for some, what alternative explanations might there be for these vivid recollections? I think that maybe this is. It could be spirit talking to us just in a way that helps us to, like I said, build that.
So make us more whole, to come towards an understanding that guides us down to the next step of what we need to do.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: I've never thought about that, but you're absolutely right. It could be, you know, divine help. You know, like, John needs a little bit of help today. Let's give him this experience.
Yeah.
Another explanation. There's a. There's a thing. I'm sure many of your listeners will be familiar with, the Akashic records. And it's the notion that all human lives, our experience, gets stored somewhere. It's a divine library. And so I've heard people think that possibly you're just accessing an Akashic record of a life that seems to match up with what you need. That's another explanation.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Oh, I like that.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Another explanation, by the way, is that spirits have taken you over for a while.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: I've had that, and it can be quite interesting and also quite like I've experienced both sides of that story. And one that I worked with was fantastic and taught me so many amazing things. And then another time, I got infested with two spirits, and they were nasty and they were out to actually take me out. And, like, until that moment, I didn't believe there was such thing as a negative position. So it was. It was horrific, to say the least.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: How did you know that was occurring?
[00:16:30] Speaker A: How did I know?
So I still had my sense of self, and I still had an ability to observe what was happening. And I could feel these two other beings that were inside of. I don't know what to call it. My soul, my frequency of what I am. And I. And I couldn't get rid of them. And.
But they also brought with them extra abilities that I didn't have prior to that. And I could actually. I had clear audience, and I had, like, an extremely enhanced intuition for events. And I was connected to reality in such a way that if I got upset, it started raining because I started crying. But then if I tuned myself into being focused, in harmony. The sun came out and everything's beautiful.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Spiritually. Got rid of those, right, somehow?
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I did. It took a while to get rid of them, and. But first it took a while to recognize they were there. And once they were recognized, I found a way to kick them out. And I actually got help from another shaman, which also appeared inside me to tell me what to do. And I didn't believe that that was even possible again. But he. He had a bizarre sense of humor and taught me a way to do it. And. And at the time that he told me the method that he told me, I was like, I can't believe that. That's just crazy. I'm not going to do that. And he said, look, I know that you don't believe what I'm saying, but there's a book show on at your local hall this Saturday. Go there and I'll show you. I didn't even know this book show was on. I went. Rode my motorbike down on that weekend to that hall, and lo and behold, there's a book show on. I go in and I'm walking around. He says, there's the book there.
Pick it up. The book was exactly what he was talking about. And I read that book in four hours. Okay, I agree. I'm going to do this. And within four months, I'd kicked. Kicked out most of their energetic frequencies which were affecting me. But until that moment, all these things I didn't believe were possible.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: You know, it's. I got the little. The shivers listening to that. A skeptic. I don't know what a skeptic would think, but that, to me sounds amazing. What a wonderful bit of guidance. And the other spirit, the benevolent one, is still with you?
[00:18:34] Speaker A: No, that's gone. That's far. Kicked out. Yeah, yeah, because of the work that I did with the. The Mexican shaman that was working with me. It cleared out all of my system. And I was amazed at how. How that worked.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: I'll go back to letting you do the interviewing.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: All right, well, let's move on to your Oracle system. So the universal mind Map Oracle meditation system. Can you tell us more about that? It's groundbreaking. And how you said that you worked with AI to make that happen. How did it shape the system that you've come up with?
[00:19:06] Speaker B: It was so, you know, the way I phrased it was if anybody has worked with ChatGPT, which I find a great tool, it matters what do you prompt in. And what I prompted in was I wanted 64 principles that individuals as well as humanity have to master if we're to evolve to our next level. And I happen to believe that humanity is in the process of evolution, that we're moving into something new. I call it Homo deus, that we've been Homo sapiens for quite a while. Homo deus is more connected, more co creators, which by the way is the Edgar Cayce notion that we're co creators with the big deity. And so I got these, within 18 seconds I got these 64 principles. I double checked it a few more times, but there's nothing anybody that came from. And I asked this, look at all philosophy, psychology, religion, self help. I think that was what I did motivational. And I cross checked it a few times, kept getting the same ones. The things that nobody like. For example, last time we tried to do this, I randomly picked patience. You know, patience, compassion, helping others, empowerment. These aren't things that you can really argue with.
Interesting though about the way the system works is you randomly access it. The principles in my deck and actually universal mind map oracle meditation system is on Amazon is based on, as I said, all of human experience. There are thousands of oracle decks. There are oracle decks like the rabbit lovers oracle deck. There are all kinds of oracle decks you can get, you know, the Grateful Dead or. But all these oracle decks come out of the one human mind. So the best you can hope for as you go through the 64 or so cards is what that human mind has to offer. If that human mind is enlightened, you'll benefit if there's something amiss with them. You know, you go down a rabbit hole with the universal mind map. It is what all of us think. So then you allow deity that which creates this to.
In the universe where there's no randomness to choose for you what to work on today. I just randomly pick another one just for the heck of it relates to this conversation. Sure. What I got was empathy.
I think that's relevant to this conversation.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: You know, that's perfect. But to every human, you know, empathy is a virtue worth cultivating because we're not alone here, you know, do you.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Ask any questions when you pull from the deck or is it just like what's this story about?
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Like when I got spirit mind, I asked my, I asked whatever is that creates this, the universal mind, as I call it, for something that would be appropriate for our interview today.
Yeah, Spirit school, which is, now that I think about it, the core principle behind the deck. Yeah. Religions that we're not here just to survive. We're here to grow in the likeness most being the likeness of deity. You know, we're here for a purpose. We get lost in our way all the time, but that's our purpose, I think.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So people could use this as a method of curriculum for their own self teaching for a lifetime.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: I find what I pick on a daily basis is remarkable in terms of what I am going through. Like I get something, there's one I keep getting and it always motivates me to call somebody that I think is hurting. You know, it's exactly which one it is. But I get that. I go, oh, I gotta call somebody. And I'm always glad that I do. I think about who amongst my friends, acquaintances I think might, you know, a little cheery telephone call and I call them. So if you work with the deck, you'll be schooled over the course of however long you do it in what humanity has decided we need to master if we're to grow.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Yeah. The way I see it is that spirit in co creation with us is something that we are realigning with and everything is working towards that greater sense of consciousness. And to put it plainly, the infinite self.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that's how I see it. And by the way, you know, I am nearing the end of this incarnation. I am going to be 77 years old in two weeks. Nobody gets out of this alive.
I did a lot of this stuff. One of the principles is authenticity. Yes. You want to grow, you need to actually be and express who you really are. And along the way, you know, I didn't talk about any of this until about four years ago when I published my autobiography is based on all the private explorations I'd done. And then the deck, I don't care anymore. And the truth is you never should care. If you're listening and you're 19 years old, you should be yourself and the best you can without fear.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: Powerful message.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Let's get into some spiritual philosophy and human evolution. From your perspective. What is Earth's role as spirit school in our collective spiritual evolution?
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Interesting question.
Let's see what I've got here. I have all these little, little things on top of my, my desk. Gaia, a lot of, a lot of people believe that there's a spirit of Earth. And I'm not sure where I fall out on that thing. But I do know that we don't always incarnate here. I did a past life group at my professional association. I did a two hour workshop training hypnotists to do what I do. And one of the people there had an experience on. On a. On a different planet, a different domain. And that happens. You know, generally, people that do what I do think we generally incarnate on the same planet. You know, if. If you're from Pleiades or something, you tend to go there, but sometimes you come here. But really and truly, I haven't thought carefully about the role of Earth, you know, where she is, Gaia talk in terms of our evolution as a whole. And by the way, I don't claim to be advanced. I am, you know, called an enthusiastic beginner in this world.
And I mentioned Tony Riley, who's in Australian. There are many, many people that are. That are. They can speak with certainty about things that, you know, I question.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: So then, what is your soul's mission in this incarnation? And how has that shaped your work with hypnosis and oracle systems? What do you feel your sole purpose is?
[00:24:59] Speaker B: I am. I am a teacher. One of my past lives was, as I mentioned, as my wife's wife. I was doing a training in Santa Rosa, California, with a fellow beautiful guy called David Quigley. And he said, was talking about how you can go back and you can see, were you with somebody in a prior life? And I volunteered. And suddenly I find myself in a blacksmith shop in rural Russia. It was open to the street, street was muddy. And suddenly there's this guy, this big beard, and he's banging on the anvil. And I am so proud. That's my husband, and I'm bringing him his dinner. And I'm the luckiest girl in the village. I have a husband that has a good trade. He doesn't even beat me like my mother said he would. Doesn't even beat me. And it quickly says, what does he say when you bring him his dinner? And I started laughing. I said, nothing. He's a man of few words in my. I talk all the time. I wake up talking. I go to sleep, talk. She has something to say. She's a woman of few words. But. So I'm having a great life with, With. With. With Victor, my husband. And Quigley says, well, let's go to the next event. And I find myself, I've heard in the village that the Cossacks are going to come, they're going to draft the men. And in our village, when they take the men, you don't see them again. Maybe for 20 years, you're a widow with a husband who still lives somewhere. So I tell him, you know, we gotta hide, we gotta get outta here. And he says, you know, you're being foolish. I thought you had more sense to listen to the women in the village. And I can't get him to listen. They take him, you know, as you can figure out, I spend the rest of that life raising three children, working like a fiend.
To my dying day, though, I never regretted being married to Victor. But I came into this life with a mandate to be listened to, to be heard. That's my thing here. That's why I chatter. In fact, there's a. Each of my little stories is a poem where he calls me the Magpie. Always chatter. And I became. I became a college instructor and I became a madman. I became a TV commercial writer and then I became a hypnotist. And when you're a hypnotist, you do all the talking. They just sit there generally. And then I became a writer. So it's my mission in this life to be authentic and also to be listened to, to be heard. That's how I see it, at least.
I don't know if my wife is skeptical. I don't know what people around you think about you, but some people think I'm just out of my mind.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: I've had that for a long time.
I sort of got used to it to the point where I don't care anymore.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but you also can't convince them.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: No, I can't convince them in the least. You know, you get to a point where people, you can feel their inner rolling eyes when you're talking to them. You're like, well, I don't care if you don't understand this. I'm here to actually help people to understand that all of these things are normal for us.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Sorry. I call my wife Victor occasionally and her eyes go right up in the.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Excellent. Yeah, sometimes it's good to be the stirrer. Do you ever believe that science will ever fully validate concepts like reincarnation? I mean, there's stacks of information out there now about this. And what does your current research suggest?
[00:28:02] Speaker B: I believe the work of Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia. He has a great book, 20 cases suggestive of Reincarnation. He's an academic. He used that word. He also has a couple of follow up books where he talks about the biology of it. Where he shows autopsy photos based on a child's experience and birthmarks. A birthmark where it's exactly where the guy got shot per the autopsy. I think it's been proven today. Yeah, I don't think it's been scientifically. Demonstrated. I don't know how they would do that yet, but I think it's been proven. I think that to look at his work and the 3000 plus and it's ongoing research, they call them solved cases, I think solved cases. And they're so well documented with a skeptical mind going to these things like is this person trying to be fanciful? I had the experience of meeting. We have a thing in the States called Carol Louis runs this called the Reincarnation Symposium and they have annual meetings. And the last one I was at, I met one of Stevenson's kids and now he's like in his 50s and he told us he's a little tiny guy and he tells us the experience of. In his village he was, he's a Druze. The Druze have a strong small little offshoot of Islam. Small little bunch of people. But they have a belief in reincarnation and it's very common for them to discuss it. And as a little guy, he told his, his parents that he was. He lives on three streets over another village or something and he's five years old and they take him there and he says hello to his wife, he's five, she's 40. And he knew where things were in the house. He had a co.
Cousin was very skeptical and the cousin said, how do I know who you are in his life. In the prior life he had thrown a large rock and hit the cousin in the eye. And the little five year old said, I promise this time I'm not going to throw a rock in your eye. And I sat in the same room with this guy. So I believe it's been proven. If anybody bothers to do the reading or the research, you have to bend over backwards to say that is not the way it is. Too many documented cases, too many to believe it. It's what I mean, would you, would you rather believe what you get out of 10 of religions? Is that more credible? And then the. Than. By the way, every religion has a huge problem. How do you explain bad things happening to otherwise good people? How do you explain why a child should be born with spinal bifida and why that child's parent should have to deal with a child perhaps who's. Who's crippled? No religion explains that adequately in my opinion. They say it's God's will. God is mysterious. A tornado comes and wrecks a village, kills everybody. It's an act of God really.
What about you choose to come here to learn things? You choose as a soul to come as a child who's got terrible, terrible palsy, is crippled. Not only to go through what you go through, but to give your parents the chance to grow by taking care of you. Does that make a lot more sense?
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Certainly does to me.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Anybody who doesn't agree, read Ian Stevenson's work and listen.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Well, I would even go as far to say is that doubts on the reality of these spiritual experiences and these past lives and all of these abilities that we all have come from an atheistic point of view which denies co creation.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Really? Can you run that again?
[00:31:18] Speaker A: So to. To take it to a point, if you were to deny reincarnation, deny karma, deny spirituality in any form that it's taking now that we're actually starting to get to the point where being pushed to understand it and become awake to it, that denial is atheism.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Yes. You deny deity.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: You deny deity.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Which case you choose to. I just, I mean, believe. Which is a belief structure that nothing makes any sense. Hi. Yeah, yeah. Where do we go from here?
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Well, letting go of atheism, I think then the opposite of that is it enriches your life.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm people or atheistic. The idea that it's a belief structure is like fingernails on a blackboard to them.
Structure.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it is a belief structure. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is a religion, an anti religion.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: It's an. It's a religion of anti religion.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
So looking at the channeling or downloading of the card texts, how did they influence your own growth during the project of bringing them out?
[00:32:23] Speaker B: During the project? It was intense and I felt they were. It was all channeled. Anybody who's done writing knows what it's like to be in the zone. And I was clearly in the zone. But in the year since, it's been a year and a half of extraordinary personal growth for me because I work the deck. I work the deck every single day. And to the best of my ability, pay attention to the lessons that humanity has provided. I do not do it perfectly. Anybody and the planet does it perfectly. But I have noticed a lot of personal growth along with incredible adversity. I was driving along two months ago with my wife and she went into full seizure. I was able to get to her to an emergency room. I can tell you I was not thrilled in the moment, but I accepted it as part of what is. And there is peace in that. Not why did this happen to me? This isn't fair. You know, they no fair. It is what it is. It happens as it happens. And Then you get to grow from, through and from it. And she's well, by the way, she's fine and I'm blessed to have her. But you know, when you look at life as being spirit school, divine coincidences as well, Everybody, I'm sure is listening has had the experience of thinking about someone and they call or you know, things coming out of the blue when you least expect it. Maybe not as dramatic as going to an event and having a book you're sent to find, but people had similar things. I know I have. You know, that is the nature of this planet, of this experience. We're all here to learn and magic happens every single day.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Every day is magic. When you're co creating and recognizing it.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: No one's perfect.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Just do your best, enjoy it and.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Be miserable for some reason. I can get a bad phone call or something. They say, people, you get married, live happily. You live happily and unhappily and happily and unhappily and happily and unhappily. And that's how it goes. But hopefully the curves on the upper.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think the other, the trick is to live the spiral ever expanding outwards towards infinity.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Yes.
Inwards into your true nature.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Oh, or a bit of the same. Is it the same thing? I don't know.
When someone draws a card from the Universal Mind Map deck, what would you encourage?
How would you encourage them? I should say to do some deeper work on that experience.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Well, at the end of every card there is a suggested action and let me pick another random card for you, see what picks for you.
Simplicity. So Your card is Simplicity55 and let's see what that says and the text of it. It ends with, pick an area of your life that could use some decluttering. Break the task down into manageable chunks and start the process. So I don't know if that resonates with you or not, but that's what I picked for you. Simplicity.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I'm reaching towards simplicity in this time in my life. Right now I'm actually going through all of the things that I own and thinking, wait a minute, what am I holding onto that for? And I'm starting to sell stuff.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: That's where the card is. That's exactly.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: And it's not just physical stuff. It, it's, it's mental stuff, it's habits, it's people. Yeah, yeah. Decluttering.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I've done the decluttering with the people. So can you share an example of a particularly meaningful lesson or principle from the deck that Shifted your own perspective.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Let me see here. Nothing is coming to mind.
Okay. What I have trouble with, one of the principles is environmental awareness. The best thinkers of the planet think that we should be stewards of the planet, that we should be environmentally conscious. And the best I can do when I get that is to make sure I recycle that day. You know, that is the one that I know. It's true. You know, if humanity is going to evolve, we got to take care of it, of this planet and as individuals to be part of the solution rather than just be, you know, polluters. It's part of evolving for us as, as individuals and a species. But it's when I get that I go, oh crap, you know, I've got to try to do something to be a steward. And like I said, I. I am not perfect. There may be some much bigger thing that I could be doing, maybe should be doing, but it hasn't occurred to me yet. And for me it's not been a great like one. Aha. It's been a daily series of lessons pushing me in a better direction.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: How does your background in psychology and literature inform your approach to hypnosis and spiritual coaching?
[00:36:40] Speaker B: That's a very good question. One thing is I know what. I know what not to do.
I have a bachelor's in psychology, a master's in Irish literature. All things well if you're in the graduate work.
So people that do what I do, we have to know our limitations. I don't work with people who are severely psychologically ill, and that's a mistake. And that's one thing. I know enough about psychology to know when I should leave something alone. The literature, you know, as an ad guy, you know, I. I'll tell you this, including the universal mind. As a kid I thought I was just too weird. How can I ever, you know, communicate what's inside to what's outside? And suddenly I'm on Madison Avenue in New York writing 30 second commercials. You have to simplify things and you have to connect with people. So I took on the mission, certainly with my book of.
It's called An Introduction to Past Life Exploration for Personal and Spiritual Growth. I am a beginner in that sense and I invite other people to join me in the process. But I've learned how to communicate simply. That was the big I even I had my own agency. I left Madison Avenue when that time was finished and I started an agency where I did industrial advertising where I took complex situation problems, issues, product lines, processes, and condensed it to train salespeople how to sell it. I did early on. Before these days. In 1982. 83, 84. A program on neural network, artificial intelligence to train software engineers how to talk. I knew nothing about it. And I trained myself to grab data fast and process and simplify it. Working with clients. You know, client sits there and tells me their life in 30 minutes. I'm able to take that 30 minute engorging of information and condense it and play it back in an empowering way. Nice. Yeah, that's my training, you know. Madman Doug and Hines Cakes, Crisco shortening.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Did you ever study the works of James Joyce?
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Oh my God, yes.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Finnegan's Wake.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: You know, I did a master's in Anglo Irish literature near College Dublin in Ireland. And nobody amongst my colleagues in school read the damn thing, but I got.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Halfway through and it just blew my mind. I was like. Because seriously, it is like experiencing a movie. Like you're in it by reading, which is so disturbing in a. In a different sort of way. How did you write that book?
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Hypnotic. A little bit.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: It is. It's definitely hypnotic.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: There's a hypnotic technique called the confusion technique.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: Yes. I've been trained hypnotist too, so. Yeah.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: And. And you know, the, the. The references are so obscure as well. He had a wonderful time writing it. But like I said, these are people I knew from all over the. We had a kid from a kid. We had a young guy from Japan. We had people from different countries in Europe. We had someone from New Zealand. Nobody read it the whole way like you.
We got a certain way and then blows your mind.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: I actually intend to read the whole thing. I mean, it's in my to do list.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Ulysses is a good place. I got as far as loving Ulysses, but beyond that, I couldn't get much into Finnegan's Wake. Except. Except the song. The song is great. You know Tim live in Walking Street, Mighty Ad. It's a beautiful song. Every Double Nurse have done it. And Clancy Brothers, Finnegan's Voice. It's a great listen to that song. It's delightful. Maybe it'll motivate you to go back to the book.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Yeah. What advice would you give to someone starting out on their own path towards spiritual awakening who might feel overwhelmed or uncertain?
[00:40:16] Speaker B: My goodness. Let me think about that a little bit. I don't think people start out on the journey. I think they're drawn into the journey. And I would just say one step at a time. You know, Trust your instincts. Beware of fools and false paths. I don't know if anybody actually maybe they do decide tragedies they're going to. Usually people come into this through adversity. You know, like I'm reasonably involved in the recovery world here in Rhode island and most people who get into a spiritual program is in that program, come in as a result of tragedy. You know, suddenly you, religion's not answering you, psychology is not answering you, and people turn to my God, literally God. So if that's occurring for you.
Yeah. Trust your instincts, I guess would be my. What would you say to someone like that? Trust your instincts would be my best coaching, I think.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say trust your instincts. And I think just, even for a simple thing you can do is just find a way to pause, stop.
Just stop.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: That's very good advice. Yeah.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: And I mean there is so much reward and reverie, like literally sitting there and letting your mind run off. Just let it, just let it chatter its, let it all out, you know. And then once all of that seems to get out of the way, then you get to that state of peace and from there can come real truth.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: I think that's my takeaway from this interview. You. Absolutely, of course, you're right. Call it meditation or call it just stopping. Yeah.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: I had interviewed a guy the other day, he was talking about meditation and he was saying to people that they just are afraid of meditation or think they can't do it. And he pointed out that that was probably the easiest way to get there is to literally just let it, let it run, Let your mind run off.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: When I first started or restarted meditation, I did it with one of these. A timer.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Timer? Yeah.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: Cool. Start with five minutes. Just sit five minutes. And the timer is helpful. If you were to go to a meditation, to an ashram or something, Something would hit a gong. If you don't have the timer, you sit there wondering, am I spiritual enough yet?
[00:42:19] Speaker A: Love it. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: You know, you know, you don't worry about it.
And when I just let it be, when I first would start, I would open my eyes and say, did I set the timer right? But after a while, you know, it becomes.
I still use the timer, but now I'm up to half an hour now. I have different protocols that I follow, but even, even that I am only human.
Some days I forget. Any day I meditate and pray, which is a different thing to start my day. I regret it. To start with the stopping is a good way to live. I think so. I think that you just summed it up. That's the best advice to anybody Listening, stop and just sit and be with yourself. And I would say use a timer.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I like the timer idea. Yeah. Makes it easier because like you said, you can't be sure whether you're a spiritual life until you get that ring.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Am I done yet?
[00:43:11] Speaker A: John, we've come towards the end of the podcast. Thank you so much for everything you've shared here today. Is there any way that people. You'd like people to come and find you and your work?
[00:43:20] Speaker B: Well, let me see here. My website is Possibilities Nu. And like Nancy, you like Unicorn Possibilities Nu. My. My book, my autobiographies.
It is on Amazon hardcover, but also audio. I did an audio version of it and Universal Mind Map also I would look on Amazon or just go, go to Amazon and, you know, look for John Koenig and, you know, look for those. Those two books or look.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: Awesome.
Yeah, yeah, look, I. I've appreciated all that you've shared here. Thank you so much, John. It's. It's been a really good talk.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: It's a mutual feeling of. Thank you. And thanks for your patience and persistence.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: The universe works in its own mysterious ways.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: It does.
All right.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: I just say goodbye to listeners.
That was a great episode with John, and I really appreciated the time that we actually got to spend together and share and discuss different things to do with consciousness and hypnotherapy, past life regression and a deeper understanding of what all that means. So if you've enjoyed today's show, remember to like and subscribe. That'd be really nice. And if you're on a podcast app, please give us five stars and say something nice. And if you think a friend would actually benefit from this, share the show. That'd be really nice. And until next episode, it's bye for now.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: It.
If you're interested, look down there, right down there and get in touch.
