Deborah Lindemann is a certified clinical hypnotherapist specializing in work with contactees and others who have had paranormal experience. She's presented at conferences around the country, and is considered one of the foremost researchers in the field. For more, check her website at: www.cfree.org.

SM: Well, my work has a few different levels of focus, depending on my audience. In the UFO/ET field, my primary focus is on the metaphysics of universal life and life on Earth, the spiritual basis of our current interaction, from the perspective of the elder extraterrestrials. This can get quite lofty, as you can imagine.

Basically, though, my goal is to bring a little more wisdom into the discussion of UFO sightings, ET contact, and global transformation. As in the title of my second book, "Universal Vision: Soul Evolution and the Cosmic Plan," my focus is on both the universal and our soul work within it.

DL: When you counsel or work with abductees, how do you feel your helping them?

SM: I generally don't work with a lot of abductees, because they just don't come my way too often. I've worked with some people over the years, and I'm happy to work with them, but unfortunately, I've found that a lot of the people who have had abductions aren't really ready, willing or able to take their lives into their own hands.

By this, I mean that I have found many people unsure if they want these experiences to end, even if they're highly traumatic. They're not necessarily willing to take the medicine offered.

In my latest book, I have an appendix which outlines the process of helping contactees and abductees. There, I define five levels of working: physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual. Each one of those levels requires a certain kind of treatment.

At the physical level, there is the obvious need for medical intervention, if the person has sustained any kind of bodily injury. But, this is just the first-level of treatment, essential if needed, but insufficient to offer the true healing of mind and spirit.

The more important levels to address are the emotional, mental, social and spiritual considerations. I can address each one of them briefly here, although they're explained in more detail in my book.

At the emotional level, there is a pressing demand to help the person process the full range of their feelings, which can be quite complex and subtle. Generally, this is longest part of the work, since the abduction experience (what I would consider, "negative ET contact") touches on all sorts of deeper personal psychology -- from childhood wounds and the early relation to parents, to the basis of self-esteem, personal worth, and self-trust. The true abduction experience usually generates a torrent of strong emotions.

Basically, all of this relates to the confusion and helplessness associated with the experience of trauma and victimization. I find most people go through tremendous sorrow, self-pity, hopelessness, fear and rage -- and this is the starting place for all treatment. My work is to just comfort them and help them accept the intensity of their feelings.

The work here is to help the person understand that these feelings are normal, totally justified, not some mark of weakness or failure, and that it is OK and safe to feel those things. Of course, most of us have a fear of strong emotion, and no one likes to feel helpless or to be "out of control", so it can be quite hard to get through all the emotional layers of the experience.

When we get to the "Social" level, we consider the need for group support, and the recognition that the person is NOT alone -- that there are some people in the world who know what they're going through, and don't think they are crazy. Of course, we also consider the fact that they shouldn't try to share their experiences without having some sense that the other person can handle it.

But finding group support is important to offset the isolating effect of our society -- which basically disparages all paranormal experience. The same kind of conflict exists with people who've had ecstatic spiritual experience -- they find themselves more isolated from their peers. For a person who has been traumatized by negative ET contact, social reintegration of some sort can be a lifesaver.

After the physical, emotional, and social levels, we come to the final stages of the work, the treatment that I would consider mental and spiritual healing. These two are a bit more difficult, and they also happen to be my own specialty -- but because they are hard, and because most people don't get through the first three levels, not many people come my way. Actually, that's too bad.

I can't really get too far into these two areas, but I can say a couple of things here. Basically, in my understanding, each person who has a negative ET contact is responsible for that experience -- and by this I don't imply any blame, judgment, or criticism. Just like the man or woman who attracts an abusive partner, the person who has the violation-type of ET contact has usually, over a period of years prior to the event, made themselves vulnerable, mentally or spiritually. This too is not any type of blame, but in my understanding, the violation occurs due to the person being in an already weakened condition...

DL: And they may not be consciously aware that they are in some way, you feel, vulnerable to this?

SM: Yes, indeed. Generally, the person is not aware (before having the experience) that they are already in a wounded or damaged condition -- mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. In and of itself, this is not unusual, since American society equates personal strength with moral worth and self-value. Thus, we don't want to feel our weakness or wounding, because then we judge ourselves as inferior, or as being a failure or reject or loser. Most people are emotionally wounded in some way, and most of us don't want to feel it most of the time.

And so, we're taught to be strong and not weak, and that feeling weak, vulnerable or in pain, is morally reprehensible, a sign of moral inferiority. People feel ashamed -- not just in our culture, but all around the world -- to talk about their problems, to acknowledge their pain or sense of weakness. As we all have some wounding, the only difference between people is in the degree to which we've healed it.

In my understanding of metaphysics, there really are "higher dimensional" negatively-oriented souls -- whom I refer to as "negative ETs." They really do exist, whether we acknowledge them or not, and they are not products of our personal or collective psychology. I can assure you, negatively oriented ETs (and their collective groups) existed far before the first human beings ever walked on planet Earth.

So these entities are real, and they do have some access to humanity. In general, they prey upon the "weaker" among us, just like any predatory animal preys upon the weaker members of the tribe or herd. They pick on the ones that are in a condition least able to defend themselves. They are just like any schoolyard bully.

In the case of interdimensional negative attack, our basic defense is simply our state of mental and spiritual awareness, which is a product of personal psychology, and our degree of self-healing and self-integration. In this case, protection comes from true and deep self-love, self-empowerment, and the established willingness to face our fears, our feelings, and our wounding. This is called "taking care of ourselves." It isn't a moral issue at all, but rather, a spiritual one.

Now, I find that most people who have had negative ET contact, don't really want to hear that, and when they do, they take it as blame or criticism -- although it certainly is not. They don't really want to hear that the experience was not an accident, and that it was co-created by both sides.

To acknowledge that one has been in a seriously wounded condition doesn't mean we're bad, or that we're morally inferior. But it does mean acknowledging that the experience was co-created, just like any abusive relationship, and that we are responsible for it -- although we didn't consciously ask for it, of course.

DL: It's a funny thing, but we now live in a society that is more consciously open to the possibility that we co-create our reality. Yet, when it comes to researchers in the UFO community, or those who have had these experiences, it stops there. They may say it is true everywhere else in their life, yet it's not true when it comes to abduction. That's like saying that abduction or ET contact is somehow separate, or outside of how the universe seems to work.

SM: Well, I think that when we're talking about interdimensional matters, which are a stretch for most people, they just assume that all bets are off. But there ARE laws that govern interdimensional contact, and that's just a fact of metaphysics. It is well known in all mystic traditions, including even the Western one, but certainly in the Eastern traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sufism.

It's like there's a sort of screen applied to the interpretation of these multi-interdimensional contact experiences. The screen comes partly from our Judeo-Christian lineage, in which the sense of self and God are diametrically opposed. There is the notion that God is strong, the angels are great, and the demons are scary and human are weak and sinful. At the extreme end, there's the idea that we're just little worms, like little sinful human beings, needing some kind of mediation and grace to protect us from evil.

In the Christian tradition, there's the idea that we cannot be saved by "works," and that we can only be saved from some kind of "powerful other" coming to us, from outside the self. And so, this kind of negative, wounding spiritual experience touches on our deepest feelings of inadequacy -- emotionally, morally, personally. It strikes our latent sense of spiritual weakness, our sense of inferiority.

And so, people can't imagine that they've really co-created these experiences. They just feel like true victims. It's a tendency in mind, it's a pit that we all want to fall into, thinking that "I had nothing to do with this, and I really am helpless." People who have a stronger sense of self, and a sense of their true spiritual greatness, generally don't have the experience of negative ET contact. But again, it is not a moral issue, but simply, a matter of spiritual vulnerability, created by the way we think of ourselves, how well we care for ourselves, and how well we know our true spiritual omnipotence.

DL: So when you say that people co-created this, you're saying that they happened to be in a vulnerable situation, even though they may not realize they were, or consciously wanted to be? They were vulnerable or had evolved into a particular vulnerable, weakened situation, so in that sense they co-created it?

SM: Right. That's exactly what I'm saying. Of course, there are many different permutations of how someone could co-create the negative ET contact experience. The basic predisposing tendency, in my opinion, is some kind of significant self-mistrust, a lack of alignment with our true self. Although it may sound abstract, I don't think it really is.

By "self-mistrust" I'm referring to a condition of living outside true self-love and self-acceptance, not listening to our feelings, not acknowledging our needs and feelings. This leads to a weakened sense of self, as we compartmentalize, deny, repress, or ignore certain parts of ourselves. It leads to a condition of not understanding our true strength or goodness, not treating ourselves kindly and openly.

This is often related to childhood trauma, coming from a dysfunctional family, or from some type of abuse. Of course, all of this has past life correlates -- as reincarnation is the cornerstone of all metaphysics and understanding of soul growth. These preconditions of mind and psyche, involving a poor sense of self and old wounds, makes that person a prey to negatively-oriented abducting aliens.

Some people who work with abductees talk about past life agreements, or soul agreements that allowed the experience to happen. I think this kind of thing is true, but I think it also needs a little explanation, since it's not so simple, and it is not a case of self-punishment, or an angry God trying to punish us. In metaphysical terms, any child who is born into a dysfunctional family -- let's say, where the father beats the mother, the mother beats the child, or there's some type of physical abuse -- has made a soul agreement to be in that family. It is not at all meant as punishment, but there is a "karmic necessity" involved in the situation.

DL: Right