The unconscious, says Dr. Brugh Joy, is composed of multiple, autonomous personalities. These personalities affect our state of health -- from allergic response to disease states such as diabetes and cancer. He suggests that the unconscious mind is far more extensive and powerful than is generally acknowledged, and that the normal conscious mind cannot hope to control the personalities within. Esoteric rites and initiations, he maintains, were designed to call forth particular personalities from the unconscious at appropriate stages of development.

In the second part of this program, Brugh Joy describes how our dreams reveal the unconscious dynamics underlying health and illness. Illness, he says, is always there for a purpose. If we simply try to remove illness, without understanding how we are served by it, we fail to grasp its lesson. As we explore our unconscious mind, we face the disowned parts of ourselves which may appear to us as hideous or demonic. Joy suggests that if we are able to withhold our conventional judgments regarding these aspects, we can gain new perspectives on personal and social issues -- and appreciate them as manifestations of our wholeness.

The late W. Brugh Joy, M.D., was author of Joy's Way: A Map For the Transformational Journey and Avalanche: Further Awakening Into Beinghood. A specialist in internal medicine, he was a teacher of the art of "beinghood" and lead conferences at the Feather Mountain Conference Center near Prescott, Arizona.