First, I would like to thank all the participants. This is the most fascinating discussion about religion I've ever participated in. By keeping this on application, rather than theology, I'm learning more and arguing less.
All right, what I think may be scaring some people away is what the presense, and use of, the Other-Than-Conscious mind means to some Christians. Those who see the mind as "soul" would have a hard time dealing with the existance of a part of their soul which isn't DIRECTLY accessable. The only options seem to be to deny it exists, or to say that this is where Sin lurks, and to allow the other-than-conscious mind to influence the conscious mind is to invite Sin into your life.
However, there are two other ways to look at this problem. The first, and I do not hold this view, is dualism. In dualism, we see seperate "soul" from "brain." Thus, affirmations work through a process of the soul telling the brain what to do. Certainly, NLP and hypnosis do tend to seperate consciousness from "brain."
The other solution is trinitarianism which I do advocate. This is the view expounded by Huna. In this view, there are actually three "selves" to an individual. The one you see most as "you" is your middle self. This self has access to reasoning, discernment, direction and awareness. This self is the most human aspect of you. Below this self lies the "lower self," which has a certain cunning even if it doesn't have the smarts of the middle self. This self also has all the memories, although it can present them to the middle self. It also controls the body and the "aka body" or Etheric Double. Above both these selves is the "High Self," which is the spiritual aspect of yourself. This is the part of you that could be said to be already in heaven. Huna prayer works through the method of using your connection between the middle and low selves to present a unified prayer to the high self. This CAN fit into a Christian "in God's Image" view of the way the human mind/soul works, and Max Freedom Long does explain this in his works on Huna. I see the high-self not so much as a "self" as it is a "source." Of course, this is a theological distinction that only makes a difference in that their are a finite number of sources (less than 20). Either way, the Kahunas saw the High Self as essentially less-than-knowable, although the High Self could communicate with the Divine and have some knowing of it.
I hope I made some sense. It's hard for me to talk about spiritual things, as I feel spirituality with my other-than-conscious mind. I'm a celebrant, not a theologist.
