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Chapter Two: Forgiveness

To forgive someone is a natural progression of experiencing profound human emotions and accepting the consequences. For example; you may forgive someone for simply being late, which resulted in you both missing an important football match. Or you may forgive someone for tying you up for twenty-four hours; continually force-feeding you sun-dried cauliflower; randomly beating you over the head with a copy of Gardeners Weekly and forcing you against your will to watch episodes of Celebrity Big Brother. The first example should be fairly easily applied – especially as you may very well end up down the pub watching the game on television and getting rat-arsed. The second one, however, takes a bit more ‘savvy’. This veggie-bondage session could be seen as slightly more extreme, and the lasting effects of such a high-intensity desecration of human rights would almost certainly leave a person scarred and possibly ‘vegan-ised’ for life.

But here’s the thing. What if both examples had the same possible outcome? What if you could endure the brutality of the cauliflower-munching sadist and come out the other side smiling, just like the football fans that drank the pub dry? Would it render such a harrowing experience as just another night to forget; to be put to the back of your mind? Of course not! But, it is possible to accept what happened and move on, no matter how grim the experience may have been. And the secret ingredient to washing really bad television programmes completely out of your hair? You guessed it – forgiveness.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. What about extreme cases of inflicted pain and suffering? How could you forgive the Nazis for what they did to the Jews? How could you possibly forgive the terrorists responsible for 9/11? How could you even think of forgiving child abusers? It just doesn’t seem feasible. Well, I cannot personally give you an answer to this type of question as thankfully I haven’t been in a position where I have had to even consider this seemingly abominable suggestion. But many others have and they have forgiven individuals for some of the most heinous crimes you could ever imagine. And you know what? They almost always came out smiling afterwards and lived the rest of their lives in relative peace.

Before I started writing this book, as per normal, I asked my spirit workers to direct me towards something or someone that would inspire me. Normally, they will guide me to an uplifting song, or perhaps I will be drawn to an inspirational film that will help to ignite my writing spark. Once again, I would not be disappointed.

Two weeks ago, my wife and son decided to go to Glasgow to do some shopping. Nothing unusual about that, you might suggest, but my wife and son very rarely go shopping together as my son absolutely hates shopping. It was Saturday and I had a full day to myself – that hadn’t happened for as long as I can remember as I’m always busy on a Saturday! And as I contemplated beginning my new book, a thought quickly came into my head – go to the cinema. I checked to see what film might be of interest to a middle-aged man sitting alone in an almost empty cinema, on a dreary Saturday afternoon, and one particular film almost reached out and kicked my ass so hard that I nearly found myself shopping in Glasgow instead. The film was The Railway Man – a factual account of one man’s fight to survive the brutality of war. Popcorn at the ready, I knew that this event had almost certainly been pre-planned by my spirit workers. I then prepared myself for an education that I would never, ever, forget.

The Railway Man is the true-life account of an English soldier’s harrowing experience in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The autobiographical account of the life of this unfortunate soldier, Eric Lomax, was tinged in controversy when the book of the same name was first published many years ago. The main talking point wasn’t the fact that much of what happened in those camps had been shamefully swept under the carpet by the British government; it was the fact that Mr Lomax had forgiven one of his torturers for the appalling crimes committed against him. Many of his fellow comrades couldn’t understand this bizarre act of kindness directed towards a sadist who had committed crimes of an almost incomparable magnitude.

I’ve read many detailed accounts of the horrors of this period and cannot begin to describe the extremely unpleasant effect it would always leave me with. You only need to Google the words Oryoku Maru to feel sick to the stomach from the unimaginable atrocities that would make even hardened slave traders grimace with horror. Mr Lomax was not on the Oryoku Maru (more aptly named – cannibal ship), but his experiences, nevertheless, were of an absolute abomination to decent human rights. However, despite suffering from frequent nightmares once returning to England, he chose the unthinkable – to forgive his chief tormentor for making his life a seemingly eternal nightmare. To most former POWs this was seen as a step too far.

The film differs slightly from the book as it infers that Mr Lomax went back to the scene of the crime to seek vengeance on his Japanese torturer, before eventually forgiving him when he found out that he too was suffering in his own personal way from what had taken place many years before. In real life, Lomax had actually prearranged this meeting and had planned to forgive him well in advance.

The end of the film is breathtaking. I watched this film with just twenty or thirty others in attendance. There was complete silence throughout the entire experience. As we all left the theatre, nobody spoke or even looked at one another. We all just wanted to get outside as quickly as possible and release our bottled-up emotions.

Mr Lomax and his torturer became firm friends after their post-war meeting. In retrospect, many of his comrades either lived the remainder of their lives in a permanent state of mental torture, or unfortunately committed suicide to end their pain. I will let you decide which path yielded the greater dividend. My thoughts will stay firmly locked with the emotions that I released immediately on leaving the movie theatre. If you haven’t watched this film yet, then I would recommend that you do so when the time is right. You will know when that time comes – trust me.

In my work as a hypnotherapist, I often meet people who suffer from acute depression. Depression is a distorted state of well-being that has unbalanced an individual’s emotional self-structure. In other words, someone suffering from depression cannot control their emotions in a manner that produces a healthy, fulfilling lifestyle. But what if that’s just ‘Doctor Talk’? After all, aren’t we here on Earth to experience emotions and what their effect has on our eternal consciousness? Wouldn’t depression be an integral part of this learning process? Perhaps, but if the effects of depression are not accepted and then suitably dealt with, then the lasting effects of such an imbalance can be extremely debilitating for any soul.

In essence, this imbalance of energy must be addressed. And if not here in the physical plane, then most certainly when returning to the world of spirit. So how do we rebalance the energy of someone suffering from a depressive state caused by extreme torture? The answer is by the means of altering the memory of traumatic events from a negative source to a more positive one. This can be achieved by hypnotherapy – and it regularly works!

Analytical hypnotherapy involves an individual choosing to regress to a point where a traumatic event occurred in their life and reliving the moment that caused this horrific imbalance of energy. A hypnotherapist will then guide the subconscious mind of the client to re-enact the traumatic event before instructing them to forgive the person involved. Once this has been achieved and the individual is returned to full consciousness, any future recalled memory of this incident will now instil a more positive emotion. This is because the individual, in their mind, has since forgiven their tormentor and now no longer wishes any bad feelings towards them. The imbalance of energy will have been suitably addressed as there will no longer be a heavy leaning towards negative emotions.

If we don’t forgive someone for committing crimes against us in this method then we will still have the opportunity when both parties eventually meet up in the spirit world. Only this time, it becomes imperative that we actively seek a compromise as any disagreement will then need to be addressed in a future incarnation.

Every case should be judged on its own merits. Forgiving someone for forgetting your birthday is much easier than forgiving someone for murdering your grandmother. But the spiritual guidelines are the same, if not the morals.

Whenever I am asked about people who inspire me and make me want to be a better person, I always name the same three individuals –Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Of course, there are many others who have sacrificed their lives to aid other people not as fortunate as themselves and they are undoubtedly my heroes. But the aforementioned gentlemen, in my view, are the modern-day benchmark when it comes to inspiring ordinary people to make their world a better place to live in.

I am always in awe of those who dedicate their lifetime on this Earth to try and maintain peace within our lands. I also take my hat off to those people unfortunate enough to find their life here shortened by terminal illness, yet fight this tenure with an unassuming dignity. But it is those individuals that choose to fight oppression with simple reasoning that hearten me with the greatest hope for the future of this huge sanctimonious-filled ball of life that we call Earth. And I will now attempt to explain why.

Gandhi, King and Mandela were all victims of totalitarian regimes that denied them the right to live a life free from prejudice and restriction of choice. Any attempt to break free from persecution brought violence and abuse crashing down upon them and everyone else who stood beside them. Gandhi and King fought this terror with incisive tongues that ripped through their bigoted immoral societies. And, as countless souls yielded under the broad sword of injustice, Gandhi and King stood firm against their immensely powerful opponents. Both men were eventually assassinated but not before their legacy had been firmly put in place. That legacy decreed that no man should be treated as unequal, regardless of their skin colour or their credence. Incredibly, this was achieved by denouncing any form of violence whatsoever against the dictatorships that had principally governed their regimes through direct violence.

When Nelson Mandela was eventually released from prison, he also denounced any form of violence against the hierarchy that had systematically starved his country of civil liberties. His ethics were akin to the principles shown by Gandhi more than fifty years earlier. Yet, unlike Gandhi and King, Mandela’s political apprenticeship was stained in controversy.

Unable to make his government concede that apartheid was abhorrently unfair, the young Mandela and his political activists believed that the only way to make change happen was to take up arms against their oppressors. Mandela and his associates were subsequently charged with treason and jailed for life. It’s fair to say that conditions in his jail cell would not have been very satisfactory; nor would the jailers have been very sociable.

After twenty-seven years Mandela was finally released from prison. The government were now prepared to listen to his viewpoint. Mandela chose to work alongside them to find a solution to the social problems that were beginning to tear South Africa apart. He did not seek revenge for twenty-seven years of injustice, nor did he choose to fight his aggressors with aggression. He simply asked his supporters to forgive those responsible for the acts of violence and discrimination endured, and to now embrace a partnership between fellow South Africans.

When he was eventually elected as president of South Africa, Mandela gave his people a voice to be heard, a life to be lived and a country to be proud of. Incredibly, he worked alongside people who had made his own life a misery for many years. His choice to forgive was his greatest asset and his greatest achievement.

When Nelson Mandela died at the age of ninety-five, the whole world rose to salute a man who endured a lifetime of hate, yet parted with a lifetime of love.

Gandhi, King and Mandela solemnly decreed that the people should willingly forgive their respective governments for crimes committed against civil rights. It is arguable that if the people had not forgiven the perpetrators of these atrocious crimes against humanity, then humanity may very well have died on those blood-stained streets.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Mahatma Gandhi.

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.” Martin Luther King.

“If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.” Nelson Mandela.