8 GROUNDCOVER NEWS IN REVIEW A book report on "Healing Collective Trauma" DAVID KE DODGE Groundcover contributor I do not remember why, how or when I came into possession of “Healing Collective Trauma — a process for integrating our intergenerational and cultural wound” by spiritual teacher Thomas Hubl and ghostwriter Julie Jordan Avritt — but most likely I was prompted to purchase the book shortly after it was published, by an interview with the author which I viewed on Public Television. After I secured my copy, I set it aside to read after I finished a book I was then currently reading. But by the time I finished the then current book, other books had been purchased, and Hubl’s work had been relegated to a low place among my trove of books waiting to be even started. It was only after the events of October 7, 2023 and the following weeks in Israel, that I said to myself, “Those are two traumatized Peoples at each other’s throats. If only they could see that on their current course, only Satan stood to be the winner, like he was the winner of World War II; Hitler might conceivably be a loser of that war, but Satan won.” It was then that I recalled the existence of Hubl’s work, and decided it was overdue for a reading. I set aside the book I was then currently reading, and began reading Hubl. My feelings about Hubl’s work are mixed. Hubl is a self-described mystic, and I’ve always found the writings characteristic of mystics to be dense — incomprehensible. I often finished entire paragraphs without comprehending a word, and such paragraphs would sometimes merge into entire chapters. It may be that some other work on collective trauma would have been more beneficial to me, had I known of such a work, and procured and read it instead. But Hubl was worth reading. Among the “facts” I gleaned from it: • The impact of trauma on individual humans extends beyond the individual; when a group of people is traumatized, the entire culture is affected; the entire group of individuals express and reinforce the symptoms of their trauma to each other, to all other members of their society, and to members of other societies with which they have intercourse; • The impact of trauma on individual humans extends beyond the generation suffering the original blow of trauma; the impact is passed onto their children, and their children’s children, and so on. The impact is passed on by both of two processes: • By how the society of traumatized adults treat their immediate children and the children of their society in general, and • By a process which seems insidious to me, but which Hubl convinced me takes place; Hubl refers to the process as “epigenetics” — the change of the the common society’s individual’s genes, so the children and/or grandchildren of the originally traumatized are genetically predisposed to express maladjusted behavior, to their personal children, and the entire society’s children, the trauma of generations long ago passed. • There’s hope in all this: Hubl describes processes by which the cultural damage can be undone. I won’t attempt to describe the processes; that’s what Hubl’s work does. I will say that the processes involve group therapies, and that I have apprehension as to whether the therapies outlined and performed by Hubl and his colleagues are as effective as a group approach led by professionals certified by the state to do such work. One challenge faced by humanity is convincing the Peoples of the world who express historic trauma through their culture of their need for therapy. Another challenge is finding the leaders of such groups who are able to guide the participants toward an end both constructive, and intended. The harvest is great; the workers are few. Which is why I want to believe that Hubl and the folks who work alongside him know what they’re doing. From Hubl’s description, they do. In their current course, the Jews and Palestinians of Israel are simply planting the seeds, in each other’s children and in their own, of a plethora of future October sevenths. If a route to peace is ever to be followed by that country, it will not be forged by generals, Prime ministers, diplomats, or hack politicians. It will require the ministrations of capable humanitarians — psychotherapists. "Healing Collective Trauma" had a cover price of $25.99 when I purchased it. One copy is available from Ann Arbor District Library — downtown branch. Your favorite local brick and mortar bookstore needs your support. Buy it. Read it. Keep it. Healing Collective Trauma — a process for integrating our intergenerational and cultural wound” by Thomas Hubl C. 2020. Sounds True, publisher. MARCH 22, 2024
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