Hypnosis for Chakra Balancing

This beautifully illustrated book contains a collection of hypnotherapy scripts for use by qualified hypnotherapists inclined toward the spiritual practice of Yoga.

There are eight scripts in all - one for each traditional chakra and a balancing script.

Available on Amazon in e-book, paperback, and the very special hardcover editions.

Journey Through The Wilderness: A Guide To Shadow Work

Some years back, during a Gestalt course, a brilliant teacher of mine said to me that when we judge others, particularly when the judgment is harsh and emotionally loaded, there is every chance that what we really are doing is projecting our own rejected “stuff” onto the other person. That lesson stuck with me and helped me work through a lot of my shadow attributes. The last (and the scariest) bit of that was working through my close relationships. This book is the product of that work.

This book is written through the voice of my inner child and spirit guide. It tells 14 stories of my closest and most influential relationships – in their glorious splendour and their darkest pitfalls. The reader is then invited to judge the characters in the stories, and through them, to integrate their own shadow.

There are some spare pages at the back of the book that allow the reader to compose their own relationship stories, and see what dark secrets of their soul they can uncover by looking in the mirror of their own partners, family, and friends.

This work is very uncomfortable and very rewarding. If you dare to enter these still waters, I wish you the best of fortune and a steady heart.

Other Books We Love

Eastern Body Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self

By Anodea Judith

At Black Cat & Co., we love this book and often use it as a reference.

It explains in detail how each chakra works, what it's energy principle is like, polarity, modality and physical ways of being expressed.

Additionally, it details the kinds of traumas that each chakra may contain when it is either blocked or over-active.

Very little jargon is used - so you don't need to be an ace at psych-speak to understand what's going on.

A Way of Self-Knowledge and the Threshold of the Spiritual World

By Rudolf Steiner

Most of you will be familiar with Dr. Freud and C. Jung as the brilliant minds who have come up with the psychoanalytic theory and have taught us in the Western world to think deeply about our individual natures and the archetypes we contain and embody.

R. Steiner presents us with a different take on obtaining self-knowledge. Perhaps a less conscious, more intuitive approach to getting in contact with our subconscious mind and unearthing the gifts it contains.

The book comprises of eight meditation chapters. Here at Black Cat & Co., we have "done" this book a couple of times. The fascinating aspect of this work is in that you don't really need to pay attention to each sentence - there is no need to really understand each sentence or word... You just relax and read. And every time you re-read a chapter, new information seems to pop out of it.

It's a magical journey, and we hope you enjoy it!

The Red Book: A Reader's Edition

By Carl Jung

I'll be honest - when I have learned about The Red Book some years back, I pounced on it with all of the enthusiasm and agility of the first time therapy recipient. I had ordered my collector's edition, spending most of my hard earned dough on this one magical tome that was going to resolve all of my psychodramas in one fell swoop. I eagerly awaited it's arrival for a few weeks...

And then it came. It was huge - containing both original and translated texts, and the marvellous glossy illustrations. It measures something like 40 x 30cm, and weighs a tonne. Maybe not a tonne... but a lot. It's certainly not one for the bath tub read, that's for sure. It still takes up a pride spot on the bookshelf in my front room though, and looks very impressive indeed.

As the book really is marvellous though - filled with Jungian archetypes (closely linked to Astrological planetary interpretations, by the way - make of that what you will...), I then spent $30 on a Kindle Reader's edition, which I proceeded to read one chapter at a time... in a bath tub. Now, the bath tub is significant here - symbolically speaking. I'll let you folks work out why, if you ever get to read this fabulous book.

If you do decide to submerge yourself in Jung's world of the subconscious mind, please pace yourself - your poor head needs to process what you read. And be prepared for some seriously funky dreams in between chapters. I strongly recommend a dream journal to go along with the book.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

By Patanjali

I discovered this book about 5 years into my Yoga journey, having read all of the popular and glamourous articles and mini-sound-bite yoga books that were out there at the time, mainly offered up by the New Age movement. I felt I was past all of that, and ready for something real, solid, and (with any luck) deeply spiritual. It then took me 15 years to get through it.

The book is divided into 4 parts - Emergence of the Spiritual Man, Means of the Soul Growth, Spiritual Powers & Mechanism of Salvation. Each part contains a series of what can be described as aphorisms - short soundbites of wisdom. The book itself is really not all that long. So what took 15 years, you might wonder.

Well... 5 years into yoga practice, I swallowed the first 2 parts pretty well whole. It took me a few weekends to get through them. Then I started on part 3 - and the words on the page made no sense at all whatsoever. I would spend an hour reading and re-reading the same page, and be none the wiser for my efforts. I'm ashamed to say it - I gave up. Not the yoga practice - just the book.

Ten years on from that unpleasant ego-infused moment, I was looking at the books in my Kindle that I have started and had not finished. The Satanic Verses was one of them - and no way am I picking up that again (sorry, Salman, I know it's highly acclaimed). But the Patanjali was there also. And I thought I might have another go. I did - and apparently, at 20 years of Yoga practice one may start to really get what it's all about.

Highly recommend if you are seriously committed to your spiritual development and would like to take your practice to a whole new level.

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret To Love That Lasts.

By Gary Chapman

My therapist recommended this book during a particularly gnarly relationship debacle of mine. Unfortunately, my problem would have been more effectively fixed by a restraining order than a book... but that's another story.

The book actually is very good. And even though it was not really what I needed at that particular time, I read it, enjoyed and still recommend it to any couple that struggles to understand each other. It is particularly useful at 2-year, 5-year, 7-year and 10-year relationship milestones - those points that quite often offer an off-ramp off a healthy relationship highway.

Gary Chapman is a story teller - The 5 Love Languages is not a how-to guide. It is more of a collection of short stories about a handful of married couples that Chapman has counselled. I'm not even particularly sure that those couples were actually real people, to be honest - some of the stories are just waaaaay too neat. But each story illustrates a particular way two people may fall out of love, because they simply don't understand the language in which they are being given attention to, cherished, loved and adored.

There is a lot of hype about this book, and on occasion, it is touted as the panacea for all relationship ills. It is not - it cannot be - as relationships are, by their nature, multidimensional breathing living things, and require more than just great communication. Great communication, however, is a very very good start, and a place my own relationships have often failed.

Advanced Spiritual Intimacy: The Yoga of Deep Tantric Sensuality.

By Stuart Sovatsky

I came across this book while trying to find some practical resources for someone going through a Kundalini rising process. This person was male and not of a particularly spiritual bend - and, as it turns out, trying to explain an energetic process to someone who is freaking out about the unusual experience they've just had is quite a challenge. I found that I had no vocabulary for the task, and metaphors didn't do it justice. This book gave me a way of explaining concepts to him in a more approachable way, because it presented both - the spiritual and the non-spiritual approaches to sexuality, which then enabled me to explain things in contrasting pairs. Some serious translating was required though...

To that end, if you choose to invest in this book, be prepared for some seriously long, convoluted, and sometimes downright made up words to hit your retinas. I kid you not - it gets intense. But if you can suffer through that, the book is actually so worth it.

It's worth the investment of time and money, because it's so much more then teaching you about the spiritual side of sexuality. It is much more about teaching you how to have an intimate relationship that is harmonious, the right kind of intense, and feels seriously good. And no... not just in the bedroom.

Stuart is a proponent of Brahmacharya - a state of self-imposed celibacy for the purposes of accumulating and re-directing the sexual energy. I, personally, am not a fan of the concept - I believe the energy should be allowed to flow as it needs to, and as directed by the divine forces. Ideology aside though, the rest of the book is a fairly practical guide to sweet-as-honey relationships that you actually want to be a part of.

If you start with The 5 Love Languages and want to continue your journey to better intimacy, this is the one to move on to.

Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini: The Transformative Power of Saturn, Chiron, and Uranus.

By Barbara Hand Clow

Astrology can be a bit of a divisive topic amongst the spiritually inclined - is it the early beginnings of science as we now know it, or divination hocus-pocus? I think it can be both. But, for me, first and foremost, it's a language. Each planet is denoted with a symbol that has specific meaning - meaning that changes tone or flavour, depending on which sign the planet is in and which house it appears in. When I talk to fellow astrology fans, we quite often talk using these symbols because they can very succinctly get a point across. When you tell a fellow astrology fan that you were having a third house Pluto in Scorpio opposition in transit and it really walloped you about the head, they tend to know exactly what you mean.

However, astrology aside, the reason I'm listing this book here is because of the value it brings to anyone struggling with Kundalini rising (aka the mid-life crisis) - whether you speak Astrologees or not.

In fairly plain language, using chakra symbology some of the time, Barbara Hand Clow explains the process of Kundalini rising, how the energy works itself through the energy centres, and what can be done to make the process easier on yourself and the people supporting you through it. Those of you who've been through it or seen someone near and dear to you through it will appreciate how invaluable that information could be at the right time.

Harden The... F#ck Up! : How to Be Resilient, Stop Taking Things Personally And Get What You Want In Life

By Felix Economakis

Admittedly, not my usual fare... I picked this book up off a shelf of a local bookshop on a whim. You see, Christmas was coming up and I had no idea what to buy for my younger brother. As comically titled and novelty books are a bit of an inside joke between us, I though a self-help book with a swear word in the title would fit the bill nicely.

As Covid hit though, I wasn't able to see my brother for Christmas that year, or the year after, and all that time at home, bored out of my mind, resulted not only in untold amounts of sourdough baked and fed to my domestics, but also in disproportionate amount of online browsing. Needless to say, I found a much better Christmas gift for my bro, and some time on my hands to actually read this book.

Comical title notwithstanding, the book addresses some very common behavioural curiosities a lot of us tend to have in our present society of instant deliveries, quick results, perfect Zoom rooms, and seemingly effortless success stories. Through simple story telling (no five-bit words in this book, either), Felix asks you to look at your life, and your life choices, honestly, take radical responsibility for those, and... get on with life. Sounds harsh... But it is amazing how far you can get if you just get on with the job of whatever it is you've decided to do.

PS: After reading it, I still gave it to my bro for Christmas the year after ;)

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