Dr. Pollock categorizes his Messiah Interviews as a work of fiction, but before he gets to the fictional part of his book, he writes in great detail about his
birth traumas. He shared with me that this part of his book is true and as accurate as he re-lived his birth regressions. The remainder of the book is a fictionalized account of his interviews in heaven for the job as Messiah with six well known biblical prophets. As the book ends, we do not learn if he received the position but he definitely was in the run-off!
He received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1969, in Israel, and taught anatomy as professor of Oral Biology and Pathology in the School of Dental Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He retired in 2006 and presently lives with his wife in Florida.
--John A. Speyrer, Webmeister, The Primal Psychotherapy Page
"I was gently put down in some type of crib, but I now also knew that this person who carried me in the womb, and the person who rejected me in the birth room,
were one and the same."
"I lived in fear each time they brought me to her hospital bed, and thereafter, throughout breastfeeding, and throughout childhood, and most of my adult life. Still, the neurotic
need inside of me still wanted her, needed her,
desperately. I could never ever have her."
--J. Pollock, Ph.D., Messiah Interviews
Chapter VI
THE GARDEN OF EDEN OR EVIL?
Yinnon has always buried himself in a cerebral avalanche of thought. He felt in many
ways, and I tended to agree that the chronological sequence of life should have been
reversed, or at least modified. Ought not the Fifth Commandment be changed? Must it be a one-way street in which children honor their parents but parents do not cherish their children.
And ought not children be able to start their lives off having some control of their own destiny, instead of becoming lost souls as a result of lack of control over who the parents turn out to be? It's easy to cry, "foul" or "sour grapes," and be labeled a complainer. However, the truth of the matter is that when you are born to dysfunctional parents, who may or may not, in turn themselves have been born to dysfunctional parents, you pretty well remain a lifelong victim who spends his days in perpetual suffering. You are essentially a glossed-over casualty victim of war who has fought in a lopsided and unfair battle.
Yinnon often compared himself to the passenger pigeon. He quoted from the author of a
poem, whose name he couldn't recall.
"The passenger pigeon has become extinct, the bird of yesterday. All that's left is the
encephalitis carrying, ugly creature, the common pigeon, who creeps around city hall
steps on soot-stained feet." Fortunately for Yinnon, he survived extinction.
Yinnon's journey has often made me think of T. S. Eliot's magnificent inspirational poem, which I identify with as my road in life.
"We shall not cease, from exploration.
And at the end of all our exploring,
We will arrive where we started.
And know the place for the first time"
His quest became all-consuming. Emerge from the darkness into the light and finally
find the elusive inner peace. Dream the impossible dream and fight the unbeatable foe.
Yinnon was a brilliant intellectual, and he knew the ins and outs of his aggravated mind.
His problem was how to translate his thoughts into speech and action. He had suffered
the destruction of too early a damage in the basilisk's den, his mother's womb, which
was reinforced throughout his sixty-six years of life.
He should have succumbed in the serpent's hole, his mother's womb, but he survived
because of Divine energy and intervention, or so he believed. Listen to his story and
make up your own mind.
Yinnon: It must have been early on in the pregnancy, when I first became aware that I was alive. Of course, at that time, I, Yinnon, had no developed prefrontal cortex to tell me that life begins before birth. Nor was I able to assign the exact time periods for the events that I am about to describe. Much later readings on the birth process would inform me of approximate dates, which I can now correlate with the events I experienced as a fetus in my mother's womb.
The gentle rocking of the Garden of Evil disguised itself as the Garden of Eden. The cool back signaled the key moment that would unveil the mask of the Garden of Evil, and forever transform my personality. Surprise! Surprise! I was startled. Like being shot by a stun gun, while simultaneously being pierced by the unexpected sting ray of a jelly fish. I was immobilized, frozen in time, like the evolutionary fossils of our ancient past.
The best I could do was to barely open in mouth in fear, and snarl like an irritated dog
that wants nothing more than to be left alone, but is instead bothered by human touch. In a matter of moments, the fear turned to terror, and I began to jost about like a ball hitting the walls and ceiling of a squash court. Only I was not on a gym court. I was in my bubble, the narrow confines of the amniotic sac. I did my best to express my displeasure
by stretching my tightened face into a phony smile, akin to frowning. Momentarily the
jostling stopped and then began again. My dry mouth opened barely wide, and I
screamed in silent horror.
When the jostling once again stopped, I tried desperately to go back to the gentle
rocking of the Garden of Eden, but I could not. It was then that I felt spontaneous energy
around me, guiding my arms and legs in what I would describe today as very slow Tai Chi moments in a warm pool of water.
Suddenly, my Tai Chi movements were interrupted. Though this time, my startled eyes
were squinting to see another creature occupying the womb. He, I think it was a male
twin, was staring right back at me with huge dark eyes. I don't think he was my identical twin, because he seemed to be
occupying his own space. We must have been in the first trimester, since by eleven
weeks, the eyelids usually fuse to close and protect the eyes until the seventh month,
when the eyes open again. I was startled and fascinated, as my twin began to duplicate my
own Tai Chi aerobics. We were like two copycat jugglers, or the
dueling banjoes in the movie Deliverance. Very soon, my twin not Only mimicked me
exactly, he arrogantly went off by himself', and seemed to be performing his own
version of Tai Chi aerobics.
Then came the bolt of lightning. My twin and I were being sucked out of the womb. The
force was overpowering. I could see his terrified face. It was as if I was looking into a
mirror seeing myself. I reached out with my hand to touch him. He made a feeble
attempt to do the same. I felt his energy, and then he disappeared from view. I was fast following in my twin's footsteps, being pulled far to my right in a tug of war.
Unexpectedly, I felt that energy again, but this time it was very strong, forcing me back
to the left in the gentlest of motions, in a direction opposite to that of the suctioning
vacuum.
I once asked my father, shortly before he died, if my mother had aborted any other
children. My father looked me directly in the eyes and nodded yes, and I knew what he
told me then was true. He said that my mother had aborted one child that he knew of,
and sadly for him, It wasn't his. I suspect from his facial expression that she had also
aborted his fertilized sperm.
It is said that G-d can save you from the forces of nature: yet, He does not interfere in
the free will exercised by man against man. I adhere to this thinking, with the exception
that His compassion can reverse intended outcomes through miracles, if He has a
further purpose for a man to alter the course of world history, or more accurately, fulfill
His plan for humankind. The first statement seems to be a truism, since even some of
G-d's fiercely loyal Hebrew prophets were murdered, as was Jesus. And we are all
aware of mass murder on the scale of the Holocaust.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is there shall be accountability for one's
good and bad actions at the End of Days. A woman aborting, or attempting to abort,
her child would seem to fall
within this realm of man's action against man. In my case, I believe Divine Providence
stepped in and interfered with the natural course of events. It wasn't the only time. I had
other supernatural experiences later in life when G-d saved my life. Why me? He had His
reasons. I had to find out for myself what my mission was.
The surest way today for a mother not to care about her unborn child is to either drink or
smoke. My mother did both, as I suspect large percentage of mothers did back then. I
had been a half-a-pack smoker myself when I was a teenager, but had never gotten
hooked. My next surprise was astonishing.
I was breathing in tobacco smoke as a fetus.
Returning to the womb as an adult, I easily recognized the taste and smelled the distinct
odor of tobacco. I began to choke ferociously and cough silently in the amniotic sac. My
first tobacco primal lasted several minutes. It was agony. I was responding to every puff.
More cold back chills of terror came my way and spread to every part of my body. I was abound in awful panic. I was outmatched by a ruthless, merciless opponent, who didn't
care about me. I was to revisit and relive the tobacco primals more than three dozen
separate times, until the experience dissipated. I thought I knew suffering. The worst
was yet to come.
I was in the birth canal being bounced from side to side again: the womb walls like a
ping pong ball. My head was vibrating in orbit and too much was happening, too fast, all
at once. The physical pain intensified. Over and over, I pulled inward, vainly trying to
protect myself from being crushed, while simultaneously holding my breast for as long as
I was able. My body was being crushed and torn apart like being eaten alive, all without
mercy from a mother who didn't want me and was giving it her last best shot to kill me. I
was feeling this pain as an adult returning to his birth.
The feelings were all consuming and overpowering. Hundred of times my body and
brain spontaneously contracted in seizure-like movements or reverberations, where I momentarily lost my conscious awareness of
what just happened.
During these periods, which would last for up to thirty seconds and
sometimes longer, I knew where I was. I just couldn't remember what I felt moments
ago. And then all of a sudden, I'd remember exactly what I felt. I was feeling these
sensations in the womb as an adult. I can only imagine the nightmare for the helpless
tiny fetus. No wonder, the brain's thalamus has to block signals from the brainstem. We
mustn't remember. G-d forbid. The neural connection transmission must not be
permitted; otherwise, we might die.
My birth wasn't even remotely like natural childbirth in which case the baby tells the
mother he or she is ready to be delivered, and the two work as one in loving harmony.
An unwanted pregnancy leaves untold destruction in its wake, and handicaps the
person for the rest of his natural life. If the person does not relive his horror in deep
regressive feelings, he is condemned to a life of searching for love. He doesn't
recognize his princess, even when the love of his life passes right in front of him, or if he
is married to her, his eyes gaze and search elsewhere. He is still looking for his
mother's love. If he remains neurotic, he will die neurotic, trying impossibly to obtain a
love that should have been his, but never belonged to him. He had so much love to
offer. He had the need to give his love. His mother had no such need. She rejected him.
"My mother had no such need." It took me almost sixty-six years to internalize these
words, to accept them for what they really meant. Not the myth, not the fairytale that I
desperately wanted to believe, but the hard cold facts. As Janov states, the unwanted
neurotic is bound to be unfaithful in his relationships. I have found that the not wanted
feeling is the most difficult of all to overcome. There is so much fear of not being wanted and so much need to be wanted. Present situations
bring these feelings up all the time. Despite the ramifications of functioning in society,
the betting odds in Vegas for me to lead a normal life would definitely be against me.
However, this doesn't mean I should have been sacrificed to the wolves. I am trying to
make a difference in this world.
The anesthesia came like one of my bipolar hallucinations. It relaxed all my muscles. I
felt like a human guinea pig in my neuroanatomy laboratory, cut open and beyond
repair. Even my mother was losing her grip, as she was struggling to keep her grasp on
me. The anesthesia did not have a pleasant aroma. The odor was familiar. I had broken
my arm wrestling another kid in camp in the summer of 1950. At the infirmary, the
nurse had taken a cloth or washcloth, soaked in ether and/or chloroform, to put me
under, so the doctor could set my broken arm in a plaster cast. I therefore knew the
anesthesia in the birth canal. It was the identical smell. General anesthesia in 1941 was
not sophisticated like it is today, but it worked, crude as it was.
As the anesthesia set in, I was both relaxed and panicky, almost simultaneously I didn't
know whether I was going to make it on time, a panicky nightmare I live out in diverse
ways in my dreams, and in the present.
I thought I heard a voice, and then I once again felt the touchless mobile energy lifting
me upwards. I gathered strength, opened my eyes towards the shadowy light, and
slithered on my own, like a snake, to the entrance of the womb. I remember touching
the hole of the asp on my way out. I don't remember doctors pulling me out, but I do
remember one last feeble try by my mother to keep me in. She was hanging on to my
right foot, which soon broke free.
The next thing I remember was looking up at an overhanging light, while lying on a cold
metal table. I gave a faint cry, but the nurses and doctors were incredulously staring at
me. I felt ugly and shriveled up, tiny, helpless, and vulnerable, and only wanted to be held and comforted. Was this why I had struggled to survive? The doctors and nurses had abandoned me, and went over to my mother's bed. They were laughing and clapping.
My mother was to demonstrate her true colors. A kind nurse picked me up and covered
me, and rocked me like the gentle rocking, I momentarily experienced in the false
Garden of Eden. I often reflect that, perhaps she was an angel, because I could still
feel that same Divine energy in the hospital birth room that I had discovered in the
womb. She took me over to my foul-speaking mother, who raised her hand and said,
"Take that ugly baby away from me" The message was clear. The stares of the doctors and nurses were for an unwanted baby. And everyone in that room knew it. It's a scar that I still carry. It's the fear, anger, and rejection of not being wanted. I felt even uglier than I looked, and the experience branded me as inferior for so many years of my existence.
I was gently put down in some type of crib, but I now also knew that this person who
carried me in the womb, and the person who rejected me in the birth room, were one
and the same. The stinky smells coming out of her vagina, and her body odor in the
birth room were identical.
I lived in fear each time they brought me to her hospital bed, and thereafter, throughout
breastfeeding, and throughout childhood, and most of my adult life. Still, the neurotic
need inside of me still wanted her, needed her, desperately. I could never ever have
her. I shouldn't say never. Over the last couple of years when I visited her in the nursing
home, we have sat together, hand in hand, for an hour, and she has just smiled at me.
There were no words spoken between us, as we established a bond that I had sought
exhaustively for so long. I honestly felt she was really seeing me for the first time.
I was still servicing her needs; however, it seemed I had cleared my soul and emotions
enough, to where I could allow the love for my mother into my guarded heart. I tried to
look beyond her roughness, crudeness, and aggressiveness, and for the first time, I
saw the contentment that I was providing her beneath her exterior toughness. This strong independent lady had finally become a vulnerable old woman.
I think about these nursing home scenes often, and I ask myself in wonder. How could
this be my mother? My mother was neither warm nor sensitive. Actually, neither of my
parents really knew me; however, these times of clasping hands were sadly, the longest and best times I've ever spent with my mother. Amazingly, I cannot actually remember any other quality time with her when I've actually had her attention for more than a minute. A moment of praise from her was like winning the lottery. Pity for both of us. It's all gone. It's all lost. Never to be recovered.
I'm glad I returned to the womb to hear those awful words from my mother. They explain a lot about how I've felt all these sad years; ugly and inferior and easily embarrassed. It may be hard to understand how I could remember those words, but that's what she said when connected to the exact energy of that moment in the birth room. Those ghastly words, "Get that ugly baby away from me," were stored in my brain until now, until I unlocked the vault that has kept them secret hidden for sixty-six years.
The events, which I described, happened, and they can't be changed. However, I have
helped to change myself, by returning to the past and feeling my pain. I now accept that it was what it was and I am more kind and compassionate and not so hard on myself. I love myself for who I am with all my faults. My mother didn't need what I needed. She only needed herself, and certainly not a child to cramp her lifestyle. My father was a victim of his own neurosis from his father and mother,
and couldn't love me. He didn't get what he needed, and he expected me to give it to him, without him giving it to me. Dad never paid attention to me, nor did he praise me. His love
wasn't real healthy love.
I'm grateful to my parents, and I'm grateful for who I am and for my life. My gratefulness has allowed forgiveness to creep into my life.
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