A Giant Step Forward by Harry Stone

Way of giants by Nicholas Roerich, Date: 1914, Style: Symbolism, Genre: Symbolic Painting Location: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia

See the wind blow across a large expanse of water, it creates a friction between the air and surface causing a wave to lift, roll and break, to send spray spiralling and rising, rushing and dropping. In the same fashion any change that disturbs the structure of world thoughts also disturbs the surface of human consciousness, whether it is of a physical nature like a tsunami, or of a non-physical nature when a mind is impressed by trauma.

When the flood of social media stirred forces it produced mind swells and people were pushed; some struggled and went into drive overload with the same images rolling and spinning like daily pop ups that sat on top of their subconscious blocking their entry into a life of ease and loveliness one that they knew well, but that they now felt was outside their reach.

They had joined the social media sites to play, converse, interact with others, but instead they became victims of bullies and from that basis they became a number: A person noted as being at risk on a government social register, Woman Number 10987, or Man Number 58473: Men and women who never had issues, who had no history or suggestion of mental health worries were now obsessing.

The enquiries into the increase in the numbers suffering from mental health problems had created a demand for something more; in other times a government task force would have been given a budget and assigned a project, but in these days of renewable energy there were other options: A machine had been designed and developed for mass production that could break down, print out, and shred stored thought energy.

Before the international launch, the parent company had earmarked several areas for research purposes and a few small towns throughout Ireland were chosen for trials.

The machines would be placed in photography and beauty shops, the usual models that were found on most high streets in medium sized towns. Several owner/managers had been asked to take part in a research program. They were encouraged to offer the product at a 50% price discount to clients who were prepared to answer research questions at the end of the process. The process itself consisted of 7 sessions and the proprietors were given two forms to fill in and email back to their product consultant. The advertising poster that was placed in the shop window read:

Dump excess mind weight, Sift healthy thoughts from the unhealthy Kill bad memory instantly. No psychology sessions required No emotional gutting Phone for more details 099886876

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Sky Rosan ran a beauty salon on Upper Broadway on the main drag in Errisbeg, one of the towns in the greater Dublin area that had been earmarked as a research zone. When she was approached to test-run the machine she decided to offer the discount to her clients and fill in the research forms for the company.

Sky had trained as a beauty therapist and when she finished college she spent a couple of years teaching within the sector while she saved a down payment to buy her own shop. She was excited about this new development in the field as she believed that real beauty was born and driven from within: Her own mantra was that all people were beautiful if they only knew it and knew how to approach the subject that was made up of a number of qualities that combined to please the aesthetic.

Sky had a spare room, a space beside the hairdressing room where she set up the desk, a few comfortable armchairs, tables and shelving. The machine itself looked a little like a lie detector, like the ones on the TV detective shows. It was centred on a table, between two chairs and the printer that was just an over the counter regular make that was attached to the thought form machine by a USB cable, and was placed on a low shelf on the overhead wall. A company representative installed the machine and gave her a tutorial on the method and applications. She was confident in her ability to run the system; it was no different than a lot of the new beauty products that had been introduced into the marketplace in recent years.

The day after she advertised the program, Hail, one of her favourite clients, signed up for herself and her partner, Sean: 350Euros for the 7 sessions, 700, for the two of them, and that was with the 50% discount supplied.

it was not a cheap product, but Hail agreed that it had priceless advantages if it did the job. The Felizs, Hail and Sean were locals, being third generation in a town that was founded in the last 100 years, their roots ran deep and the word of mouth advertising from a successful session with both couldn’t be bought.

Hail had convinced Sean of the benefits by using the new mental health social media drive projects as an example of how easy it is to slip into fear or depressed based memory, so she booked their first appointments for the first Friday of the month, one for 2PM, and the other immediately afterwards for 3.30PM.

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Sean worked as a psychologist. He knew that humans have total control over the information that enters the subconscious mind through the five senses, and that few used this power to their best advantage. With all his training and knowledge he found it incredible that he had been thrown to the wolves. He had found himself embroiled in a few discussions in social media and his background in ethics did him no favours, particularly as he now knew he had been arguing with drones. He had been knocked back and he was the first to admit that he had felt like a fool, he should have known better, so he was ready for a bit of self care, but aside from that he was curious as well. He wanted to know how this new machine worked. He had use for it in his own practice if it showed results.

“Hail! who’s on first here?” He enquired laughing, as he parked the car in the underground garage in the shopping centre nearest their destination.

“I’ll shop, you go,” she replied, “Come on, you are more in tune with this stuff. You can test it out for me.”

She teased. “Okay, I’ll go first. You try and get in for 3.15 p.m. we don’t want to be hanging around all day”. “I will,” she replied.

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Sean was Sky’s first client. “So, what’s the story, Sky?” he asked, rubbing his hands together, totally out of his comfort zone as he stood in the reception where a few ladies waited on their hair appointments ... “Follow me.” She replied as she took him through the side door, Standing just inside the room with his back to the closed door, his gaze swept the scene as he asked, “What’s happening here?” walking across to the table he hundered down to get a closer look at the machine that had electrodes and usb’s running out of its centre. “It’s good to see you, too, Sean” she laughed “Now let’s do this?” “Sit there,” Sky pointed to the chair nearest the machine, “I’m going to hook you up to the brain wave interface, I have 4 electrodes, and I am going to attach two to your forehead and two behind your ears, this will

give us both a readout of a wave parameter, and then I will print off your NOW reading. Here take the handout. I know you know this information as it’s your game. But I am oblidged to tell you what is going to happen it’s part of my contract with the company. As you can see here on the brochure information Sean, low-frequency ‘alpha’ waves indicate a relaxed state--this will show up as “green” on the printed sheet; higher-frequency “beta’” or “gamma” waves indicate a busy or concentrating mind, it will show up as “red.’ And red is the first colour code for the thought holder, but it’s just a coincidence it has no other connections.” she said.

Sean threw his hands up in the air in a form of submission, but she continued: “No let me finish please! Your focus, what you concentrate on or ponder about brings the thoughts that you want to delete to the surface of your mind, and when you have them there and I have the reading, we can copy them and save them to a folder on the printer, and by saving the path in this fashion the thought can be re-uploaded and placed directly back to where we took it from, that is if you don’t want to lose it, so basicallymwhat I am saying is that we have the address file of you specific emotional event. ” Sky took a breath and smiled, and Sean waited.

“Right,” she continued, “Before we start, I want to run a quick “TH” test to make sure you are synced in with the machine. Can you focus your mind into a bad memory in your past to give me a reading, please? something that caused you shame, guilt, or embarrassment, I don’t want to know your business, this is your private memory. I just need to get a reading for my delete order. I am going to attach the leads now. When you are ready, please give me a thumbs up.” “A TH, Sky?” He repeated, “what the heck?” “Yeah, your memory will be placed into your own “’Palabra File” and then added to your “Thought Holder,” which is a personal folder assigned to you that will be saved onto the hard drive,. Well now, Sean, this is just the label that I have given the folder on the system.” She said,. And he laughed as he said, “a thought holder folder, it rhymes, Sky” and she smiled back at him and without taken a breath continued: “Let us just do it and see how it goes. It works best in the doing, and as it’s error corrected all is good. I tried myself and it worked for me. I am still here.” Sean focused on his thoughts as Sky attached the electrodes.

This was all very new to him, purposely pulling a bad memory to the surface went against his positive living principles, but then he had fallen between two-stools on social media. Not that he considered social media all that important, but it was everywhere, and it was a case of keep up or fall behind. His phone number was like a skin tattoo.

He went back to an old school memory where he was bullied on the football pitch. It was as if he was outside himself looking at the scene again. Seeing the mud on his lily-white togs and the tears breaking behind his eyes. Lost in thought, it took a minute for Sky’s voice to register. “Are you ready to go, Sean?” He gave her a thumbs up and before two minutes had passed the printer was chugging out the page. “You got a red jagged line,” she said, “That means we are ready to go.”

“Okay, let’s do it!” Skye handed Sean a red headband that had electrodes built in, “Can you put this on please, it has a special Bluetooth device that will pick up the styled brain wave that your thought produced, just that one, no other and it will print a read out, It won’t delete anything yet, but you should feel an energy boost when it happens, a small spine-tingling charge will rush through your body. This means that the old miserable energy has been moved from the mainstay (your memory) into the folder.” “Can I move it back out of the folder,” Sean asked. “You can, remember it’s routed to its parameters” Sky replied. “You still have an opportunity to allow it to be part of your life, but when it’s shredded it’s gone. Can I ask why you might want to keep it?”

“One gets comfortable Sky, my mind like yours and everyones is full of memory, bad, good inbetween makes up the whole, each day one takes it all in, the memory is the “I am,” even as we are building more, I sometimes think it should be ‘Y’am’ not ‘I am. “We all are part of yesterday’s I am, so when you cut memory away what’s left? do I need something to fill up the space, to replace the block of thought.?” “How do you mean, Sean? “ “Okay, if I lose memory, bad or good, won’t it change my make-up, make me into a new person?” “I don’t know,” Skye answered. “That’is your area. You tell me. I am just the machine operator. Do you want to continue, surely an opportunity to dump the bad stuff is a good thing?” she asked. “Honestly, Sky, I need more time to think about this. I would normally say yes, but if it’s been dealt with! Will it matter. The idea is exceptionally fine, I enrolled because I was being rattled on social media, being dragged out and dragged down by the negative conversations. I was becoming a mental health casualty for no other reason than that I was allowing strangers to affect my thought process, so in a way I had become a victim to bullying, just a different type than what I might have been aware of in the past. I am not sure what I was expecting, but I don’t know if I want to lose a memory, even a stressful one if I have it under control. I am my memories.” “That’s fine,” she replied. “What about, Hail?” “Well, she’s her own person. She should be here now. She’ll let you know!”

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Hail was waiting when Sean came out, “I’ll be in the car” he said, “There’s no rush now, I have my kindle with me and I’ll tell you later!” he laughed as he sidestepped her questions ...letting her “buts...” ring out behind him. Hail was smiling as she went into the side room. She remembered it as the “Tanning Room.” Skye took her through her paces and she got the red-line readout. Hail was so used to working

with the facial machine that measured skin quality and with hair colouring machines that matched every part of the hair down to the root follicle that she didn’t have any worries about the product and there were a couple of bad, icky, memories that she wanted to dump.

When Skye told her about the “Thought Holder,” the folder that sat on the hard drive, she thought it was the best idea she had heard in her whole 35 years.

“Afterall why would anyone want to keep hold of bad times when they had an opportunity to shift them and their supporters.” She said, and when Skye gave her the headband she wore it gladly. Skye then showed her the printed line. “ Hail, this is what the program will collect, and you will feel lighter, but rather than me telling you how you might feel you can tell me.” Sky had rethought her pitch.

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With the headband in place, Sky lit-up the monitor and sent the instruction to collect all lines that had similar parameters or were on the same wave pattern as the one that had been printed out. It only took five minutes for the miserable memory to download. It took longer to process and as it was processing Hail felt the spine tingle sign of the good times resurface. “Wow” was all she said at the end as she laughingly asked. “Was it good for you too?” “I’m assuming you are happy to shred! then?” Skye asked. “I am, indeed.” She replied and she and Skye watched the bad memory pages fritter into the waste bin. The session was completed in less than an hour, the shredding was the real earthed visual proof that the memory was gone. Before Sky had a chance to ask if she happy, Hail was asking her about her next appointment, “So what’s next?” “What I am doing is searching the energetic mind rainbow for the bad stuff. That might be more detail that you want to hear.” She laughed. “So it’s yellow next week, then.” “That’s right. you know your rainbow line?” “I do, I got a new dress collection arriving soon under a “Rainbow” fashion label, You should pop in? Our clothes help make us,” Hail said. “That’s what Sean said about memories.” Sky replied.

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By the time Hail completed her shopping and joined Sean in the car for the ride home it was 6 p.m. That evening they fell into their regular routine; Hail prepared the food while Sean showered. Then he put the Friday chicken in the oven and laid the table while she showered and prepared her Saturday

diary; they both served up and as they sat down to eat the 9 o clock news came on TV and aside from one or two comments about the sessions there was no space to discuss anything in detail.

Friday was always busy with preparations as Saturday was one of Hail’s busiest days in the shop, and as Sean was on a restday, she went up to bed ahead of him.

He poured a whiskey and relaxed in his recliner; the TV was on only for background noise, his mind was running back over his session: he saw the electrodes and the printout; he chuckled over the “TH” folder. It was awe inspiring in so many ways and in his mind he travelled down the “shoulda coulda “route and then thought, maybe! next time. There was no rush, he could wait and see how things developed. He poured a second Friday night whiskey, watched some of the ‘Late Show’ before retiring.

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The bedroom was lit by soft summer tones. The furnishings and the wall coverings blended with the full moon and streetlights to throw out a misty infusion. Hail was breathing softly and he moved her over to make a little bit more room on his side. Going over to the window he checked the street. Just habit; they lived in a built-up area and he always looked through the curtains before undressing and climbing into bed. He smiled as he saw the outline of Sky’s advertising folder pasted onto the telegraph pole; wondered if she needed a licence to paste.

A few minutes later, as he lay on his back he slipped into the hypnagogic stage--the between sleep and wakefulness arena: His reactivation of the memory had done him no favours, and as he lay there he saw the bullying replayed in the bedroom, literally in front of him the form was impressed on the air and the incident replayed. He was there again, he felt the shame of breaking down and crying on the pitch, and once again he experienced his hatred for his antagonizers. Coming to, he switched on the bedside lamp. Well versed in the workings of the brain he knew the light would break the connection.

Shook by the experience, he got out of bed and went into the bathroom and washed his face, he was white and perspiring, his hands trembled as he dried himself off. With all his psychological work, his experience, his knowledge about after effects he had considered that he might have been immune. But emotions are the very devil, they wait their time and then they rise like air.

Sean remembered that Hail had said next week was going to be a “yellow line week,” he decided there and then to keep his appointment. He’d have a chat with Sky about adding a date at the end of the sessions to see if he could re-visit red, after he deleted yellow.

Getting up, he went downstairs, poured himself another drink, relaxed his mind, and toasted his ability to know how to trap the wind and make good decisions.