From Chapter 6, Cleansing your Subconscious
Case Study: The Thief Inside
Peter D. was a successful thirty-five-year-old middle manager in a large car company. He was married with two children, and his life could have been completely in order if it weren't for the bad luck that seemed to follow Peter everywhere he went. If, for example, he went to a convention and parked his car alongside those of a dozen colleagues in an unguarded parking lot, you could be sure that his car would be the only one that would get broken into--even though some of his colleagues had much more expensive cars. If a gang of burglars was operating in Peter's neighborhood, his home would be broken into--even though he, unlike his neighbors, had installed an expensive alarm system.
Events such as these happened to Peter at every turn: in restaurants his coat would get stolen or exchanged for a coat of lesser quality. The insurance scammer waiting at an intersection to provoke an accident would hit the gas exactly when Peter was passing by. The dishonest cashier at the supermarket picked Peter out of the line of customers--and charged the expenses of her shopping spree to him. This and more kept happening.
How do you explain such a string of mishaps and bad luck? Those of us familiar with the cosmic laws of energy exchanges, as well as the attraction and transformation of energies, will know the answer. After listening to Peter's story, I asked him flat out: "Is there something in your past, Peter, that has to do with burglary or thieving, I mean, a dark spot where perhaps you were the burglar or thief?"
This question was followed by an extended silence. At first, Peter had appeared as though he was about to jump up at the accusation, but he quickly fell back. With an increasingly guilty look, he finally mumbled, "How . . . did you know? It doesn't matter, Dorothy, the fact is, you're right. There was something . . . more than once . . . many years ago . . . . I've never wanted to admit it--not even to myself . . ."
From looking at Peter's groomed, professional appearance, one would not have suspected what he now admitted: back in his youth and even in his early adulthood, he had often shoplifted in stores and supermarkets. In my view, he still suffered from mild but significant kleptomania. He had never stolen valuable items and had afterward always suffered overwhelming feelings of embarrassment. His acts were entirely unacceptable to him and as inexplicable as the random criminal acts of a stranger. Later on, Peter learned to suppress his self-destructive urge. The worry of returning to his old ways was cause enough for Peter to avoid dealing with these memories, even in fleeting thoughts.
This avoidance, however, caused the memories of his petty thefts--along with his suppressed kleptomania--to land in his psychological junkyard, where they rusted for years. Peter had never before dared to look at these "horrible acts" calmly, let alone tell his wife or a friend. Thus, this suppressed psychological material became a magnet of bad luck, a knot of negative energy anchored in his subconscious. This knot continued to attract those things, people, and circumstances that reflected its negative polarity--that is, thieves, burglars, and bad situations--which, in turn, facilitated the work of those dishonest people.
The advice I gave to Peter was thus simple: "Admit your thievery," I told him. "Don't hide what you did back then from yourself. Try to look calmly at the person you were back then, and at the things you did. Do you really think you would do them again today?"
Again he was silent for awhile.
"No, I don't think so," he finally answered. "I've actually long known that this urge to steal things from others stemmed from my feelings of inferiority back then. Even as a young man, I was always afraid that I would never find a well-paying job, a beautiful wife, that no one would ever love and respect me, and so on. But since I've proved the opposite to myself and the world at large over the last couple of years--how can I be afraid to fall back into these old patterns?"
To free his subconscious once and for all from these and other aspects, which he used to suppress but had by now actually overcome, I recommended the following exercise to Peter D. and asked him to carry it out every two to three days for two weeks.
Two years after Peter sought my counsel (and followed my advice) as a spiritual adviser, he called me and told me how his life had changed: the previous year he had received a big promotion. In recognition of his services, he became a senior manager; he was overjoyed that his life was now harmonious and going according to his wishes. And Peter never again has been bothered by burglars or thieves.