Gary Ahlskog,

A decade ago, I managed to fulfill the requirements for ordination in the UCC. My ministry proposal, “Hypnosis in Death Preparation,” would have offered hypnosis within a network of NYC congregations, commensurate with each voyager’s wishes to create (1) freedom from anxiety; (2) life review; (3) rapprochement with others, living or dead; and (4) readiness to be welcomed into the arms of Jesus. My congregational committee rejected it. I’d like to claim the prize for a ministry so liberal that even the UCC couldn’t endorse it. So I’ve proceeded as always, since graduating from YDS, to carve independent pathways for ministry as a Psychologist, Psychoanalyst, and Master Hypnotist, halftime in NYC, halftime with my wife, Ellen, in Jamesport, NY. Like many of you, I was at Coffee Hour at YDS when the announcement came in about the Kent State shootings. Like many of you, I believed this suffering could take us forward towards a higher consciousness and, like many of you, I never dreamed we could have regressed so far today. Back then we thought we knew what to do to help. Now I don’t.