Hall of the Mountain King

A Self-Hypnotic Script You Can Use
Copyright © 2004, Charles Scot Giles
All rights reserved.

This is a favorite script of mine. It is used to teach that beauty comes from within and it is no shame to have an illness. There are several implied sexual images (the phallic tower and the womb-like cave) that I have found intensify the experience for most adults. The shattered mirror image is historical—a dome in Iran was decorated with shattered glass fragments when the original mirror intended for it was broken by accident. There are also several Biblical allusions in this script. I created it using the Mind Mapping Technique that I sometimes teach at National Guild of Hypnotists meetings. It involves using a Chevruel Pendulum to cull a list of free association ideas to create the material for the induction.

Now, as you relax and as you drift, be comfortable and safe, and know that all shall be well. Everything shall be well.

As you do this self-hypnotic exercise, it is inevitable that you will hear sounds from within, or beyond, this room. Allow these sounds to remind you that you are safe. You and you alone will decide what to pay attention to and what to ignore. You and you alone will decide what is important and what is not, and you will focus your attention on what is important and ignore what is not important. Therefore, you are in control. Both your safety and success are certain—because you are the expert on you.

Allow one part of your mind to observe carefully on what is about to happen, and allow another part of your mind to experience as fully and as completely as you feel appropriate and safe, what is about to happen. Allow another part of your mind to travel through time and space with the voice, traveling and drifting, allowing the voice to be one with your own interior voice. And hear that voice as it says, “I feel calm. I feel relaxed. I feel in control. I am calm. I am relaxed. I am in control. I feel safe. I feel secure. I can let go. As I let go all negative thoughts and feelings leave my body. As I let go only positive thoughts and feelings remain. I feel calm. I feel relaxed. I feel in control.”

And now, you will count from ten to one, and as you count from ten to one allow the numbers to relax away until about the time you reach the count of one, when you are invited to be as comfortably and as deeply relaxed as you feel appropriate. And so you say…10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And now, imagine going into a movie theater. Not one of the modern theaters, rather one of the kind we used to have years ago when movie theaters were palaces for the common people. Many beautiful lights that seemed to move and dance lighted the outside of the theater. The marquee would have the name of the show that you would see, and the colorful lights would make moving patterns on the ground.

As you enter the theater you notice that the red carpet is soft. The theater is large, and there are marble staircases leading to the balcony. Even the stairs are covered with the soft, rich carpet. There is the smell of popcorn, and the sound of laughter and animated chatter.

As you enter the auditorium you notice that the room is very large. Overhead you see that the ceiling is a barrel vault, and that it has been painted the color of the evening sky. Inset in the ceiling are small lights that twinkle like stars. In fact, they are arranged in constellations and you may recognize some of the constellations like Orion, the Pleiades, and Ursa Major. Most of the light comes from a chandelier of polished brass and crystal. As you look at it you can sometimes catch a beam of light just right as it is diffracted by an edge of one of the crystals, and then you see light in one of the bright, primary colors.

The walls are decorated with murals. Perhaps patriotic scenes; perhaps the scenes from classical antiquity such as the ancient physician Hypocrites teaching his students. The aisle slopes down before you, flanked on either side with a light at the end of each row of seats. At the front of the theater there is the silver screen, now covered by a red velvet curtain. On either side you can see illuminated EXIT signs, and you know that if you need to leave the theater quickly you will be able to do so, safely and easily. So your safety is assured.

You walk down the aisle until you find the seat that is just right for you. The seats are large and comfortable. You take your seat, sinking into the comfortable padding. You settle your arms on the armrests, and the lights in the theater dim, as the curtain rises and the screen comes to life.

On the screen, the show has begun. You can see a beautiful mountain scene with music and color. Somehow you find yourself floating in the air above your seat and you can look down and see yourself still watching the movie. Then, imagine that you move through the silver screen and enter into the mountain scene.

You are now standing in a mountain meadow. It is a beautiful day. Up ahead there is an ancient stone bridge that leads from the meadow to a grotto carved into the living rock of the mountain. People who lived before history was made cunningly made the bridge, and the stones fit together without mortar or cement. The bridge is spacious and safe to walk upon. You step onto the bridge and walk. You hear your footsteps, and high, high overhead an eagle cries.

You come off the bridge into the grotto. It is large, and a faire is in progress. Everywhere you look there are booths selling crafts, drink, and savory foods. There is the sound of voices, the happy sounds of children. It is a good faire.

You walk through the grotto and at the back you notice that there is a vertical split in the living rock of the mountain. It is a tight fit but you can pass through the split in the rock and discover on the other side a large dark cavern. It is warm, humid and safe here. Somehow light streams in from above, and while the cavern is shadowy, you can see to move around.

There in the center of the cavern there is an erect stone tower. It is the Tower of the Mountain King. It juts up high and rigid. A path leads from where you are now to the tower, and you follow the path. It is important to always follow your path.
When you come to the tower you notice that there is a door at the base, and as if sensing your approach the door opens and you enter the tower. Inside is a room, like the Common Room of an inn. A fire burns safely, and cheerfully, behind a protective screen, and the room is full of tables and chairs where people sit and feast. Serving wenches and lads move around the room with trays of food and beverage. It is a happy time. You move through the room to a spiral staircase you notice at the back of the room.
The staircase winds up, in a double helix, leading to an upper room above the common room at the inn. You ascend while remaining relaxed. You can hear the soft “booming” sound of your footsteps on the stairs as you ascend. At the top, you enter into the Throne Room of the Mountain King.

The King is not here, but his throne is. It is beautiful and shimmers in the light like a diamond. As you look at the throne you realize that it is made of thousands of pieces of broken mirror, which have been put together with mortar and polished so that not a single sharp edge remains. The throne is smooth, and glistens in the lights. As light touches the throne the mirrors reflect the light so that the chair glows with rainbows of light.
You have been granted permission, and so you sit on the rainbow throne of the Mountain King. And the colorful light wraps you like a coat of many colors, like Jacob’s coat. As you sit you learn of the wisdom of the Mountain King. Long ago the King declared that his throne should be made of mirrors. But as the mirrors were carried over the bridge and toward the tower, the workmen stumbled, and the mirrors shattered. Yet the King was wise beyond his years, and gave orders that the broken fragments should be gathered together and fit so cunningly together that they would decorate the surfaces of the throne like a mosaic of smooth, polished glass. And so it came to be, and the throne was made.
When the throne was brought into the sunlight for the first time, people realized that it was more beautiful in its brokenness than it ever would have been if it had been left unbroken.

There is a beauty in brokenness that unbroken things never attain. It is true of us too, for people are stronger at the broken places. If a bone is broken, and heals, the area of the break is stronger than the surrounding bone, and will not easily break again. We are stronger at the broken places; there is a beauty in brokenness. When we rise above adversity, we rise in quiet triumph, even if no one notices but ourselves.
This is your throne now. Your unconscious mind can return here whenever it wishes and know the secret of the wisdom of the Mountain King. You are more wonderful because you have suffered and survived. There is nobility within you.

Now you rise from the throne, and journey back. You depart the Throne Room, and move through the inn below. Yet this time the people there take note of you, and acknowledge you with a smile and a kind nod of the head. You leave the tower, and move through the cavern. You press yourself through the split in the rock and walk through the faire. The bridge awaits, and you cross it home.

Now imagine yourself back in the theater, and the show has ended. The curtain descends and the lights come back on. You rise from your seat and find the aisle. You move up the aisle. As you move up the aisle you will count from 1 to 10. As you count from one to ten you allow your trance to gently lighten, until at about the time when you reach the count of 10. Then your eyes can open if they have not already, your mind can move back to ordinary awareness, and all of the parts of yourself can merge.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.