Metamorphosis   

By Robert St. John

The name Metamorphosis is Greek and very ancient. It has many meanings and is used in many ways and in connection with many schools of thought and sciences.

In the Oxford English Dictionary one of the meanings given is “A complete change in the appearance, circumstance, condition and character of a person.”

In my experience of the treatment of retarded children, either Autistic or Down syndrome, this description is wonderfully accurate. The word Metamorphosis describes what takes place perfectly: but I would alter the word “change” to the word “create” because what takes place in this work is something that is a creation. A “creation” is the production of something that has not existed before: “change” is the alteration of the order of things.

In Metamorphosis that which takes place is something that is the child’s (person’s) own inner healing principle, the child’s (person’s) own desire to assume normality. The child (person) is the healer, not the practitioner. And through the medium of Metamorphosis it is not only the child (person) who assumes normality but the principle of inheritance. In the use of Metamorphosis, whether it be for the treatment of a retarded child or that of an adult who wishes to find a new way of living, it is the genetic “line” that is healed. Whatever the age of the subject, the process of Metamorphosis reaches the very basis of healing in our lives, it is not only the child that becomes normal but all members of the same genetic line, the parents and grandparents. In the case of an adult, the children all experience this creation of normality; and this from the treatment of one member only.

Metamorphosis heals at the most primary level, that of the principle of life within us. Metamorphosis does not “cure”; it enables us to create a different attitude towards life, and it is this, which alters our troubles, we cease to create illness. This is why the use of the word Metamorphosis is so appropriate to this work.

In visiting Greece and talking to people there about the meaning of the word Metamorphosis, I was told that the modern understanding of the word is “A transmutation into a higher substance.” I feel that this is even more appropriate than the dictionary meaning.