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“T can’t”, she said. She was twisting and fluttering her hands in agitation again. She began to hyperventilate. Her arms were twitching and jerking. She was rubbing them frantically with her hands as though she were in pain. “Because THEY won’t let me”. The word “they” was pronounced with such terror that a chill ran up my spine. “What do you mean? Who is it stopping you from seeing, from speaking, from remembering? Who is THEY?” I asked, hoping she would blurt it out before the skip came again. If ever there was proof that a hypnotherapist with a pre-formed belief cannot influence the recall of a subject, this case is a classic in that regard! I am ashamed to admit my assumptions now, and I freely admit that it may not have been the proper approach to the problem, but then again, the subject was not claiming to have been abducted by aliens - at least not consciously. What’s more, I was very careful not to “lead” in To say that I was puzzled and frustrated is an understatement. I had never encountered a blocked memory that I could not find some way to access. This was one of my specialties. I could find the “back door” of the mind, ease the pain, and get to the root of the problem. With Pat, try as I would, nothing worked! She repeated: “I can’t! I can’t!” In frustration I asked: “Why?” and her answer had raised the hair on the back of my neck and chilled me to the bone: “Because THEY won’t let m el" For a few moments I was completely nonplussed. I had never encountered a “They” who could so effectively block memory and cause pain and suffering when attempts were made to access it. I quickly theorized that I was dealing with a deeply repressed trauma. I wanted to believe that it related to something in childhood, or perhaps even a past life, but I couldn’ t shake the eerie sensation that washed I knew that I could not lose the professional “control”, and I decided that it was not wise to push any further at this moment. Sometimes a subject must be “conditioned”, over time. So I started the suggestions that would make her feel good, make her like hypnosis, make her want to do it again, and help her to go into a trance more easily in the future 73 High Strangeness — Part One “What do you mean, you can’t?” I asked. She just shook her head mournfully. “T can’t tell”, she said. “I can’t.” any way, so the “experiment” was, essentially, uncontaminated. over me when she cried “THEY won’t let me!"