Hypnotizing Maria
By Richard Bach
Published September 18, 2009 (Hardcover) Hampton Roads Publishing
Hypnotizing Maria begins with a pilot who inadvertently becomes a hero. Pilot Jamie Forbes, in comforting-Richard-Bach style, convinces Maria, a passenger in another small plane, that she can make a safe landing after her pilot-husband dies.
But the book bounds far and away from that simple realm. The book slips bonds of ordinary beliefs. The book bounces my brain from the reality I know to the place in my mind where I play. The play turns out to be true; the reality, not.
Maria claims that Jamie has hypnotized her into landing her plane safely. That thought prompts Jamie to remember an incident when he felt trapped by a stone wall on stage in the middle of a hypnotist’s act. Except, there was no stone wall. And, Jamie realizes there are no limits, except for when we believe there are limits.
“The whole sport called space-and-time, he realized, it’s hypnosis! Suggestions, they’re not true until we give our consent, until we accept. “
That means I can blow this pop stand whenever I want.
The diabetes type two that found me four summers ago, I can de-hypnotize myself from accepting that illness as mine. I’ve been playing with that belief lately, telling myself that I will heal. I’ve dropped my insulin intake from twelve daily units to ten in the last month, my weight has dropped five pounds, and my blood sugar readings are a bit better than they’ve been. I’m attracted to better foods.
What about age? Since I was a kid, Disney songs have been threads in the fabric of my mind. I hear this one — lyrics from Neverland — frequently:
You’ll have a treasure if you stay there, more precious far than gold. For once you have found your way there, you can never, never grow old.
Is that why I often come across as ten to fifteen years younger than I am? Let’s go for the vitality and buoyancy of twenty years younger, then! Why not!
And the wonderful people I meet on my journey. Not random. Not at all. Much like in Jamie’s experience, when he coincidentally runs into a female hypnotist several times, it is Law of Attraction in action. Jamie says “Law of Attraction …it’s the definition of hypnosis!” We live in a world of energy, not stone and steel, so why shouldn’t we be able to shape-shift our lives by accepting more desirable Truths.
When Maria said to Jamie that he’s not a pilot, he’s a hypnotist, Jamie was given a great gift. Hypnotizing Maria is likewise an amazing gift.
