Trying to understand myself
The starting point was personal rather than academic: trauma, pain, identity, consciousness and the uncomfortable discovery that understanding something intellectually does not necessarily change it.
Martin Rothery · Founder of Nine Realms Institute
I started with questions.
Most of what became Nine Realms Institute began because the explanations I was being given did not quite explain what I was actually experiencing.
Client zero
I did not begin by trying to create a system.
I began because parts of my own life hurt, confused me, frightened me and refused to fit neatly inside the explanations I already had.
That was a long time ago now. Over the following 38 years I studied psychology, changework, hypnotherapy, consciousness, philosophy, biology, spirituality, mythology, metaphysics and whatever else seemed capable of answering the question in front of me. Sometimes it did. Quite often it answered one question and produced another six.
I worked with people. I watched what changed and what did not. I became increasingly suspicious of explanations that sounded wonderful in a classroom and fell apart as soon as a real human being sat opposite me. I also became suspicious of the opposite problem: dismissing anything unusual merely because it did not fit the preferred model.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, Sanomentology emerged. Later came the Nine Realms. Neither arrived because I sat down one Monday morning and decided what the world needed was another branded methodology.
I kept following the question. The body of work grew because the old maps kept leaving things out.
How the work developed
It grew in layers because people do.
Learning what was already available
I studied established approaches, trained in changework and hypnotherapy, worked with people and learned a great deal from systems that were genuinely useful without pretending any one of them explained everything.
When technique stopped being enough
Sanomentology developed from the need for a deeper way of working with subconscious and dream architecture, symbolic experience, safety and reorganisation rather than simply applying another technique to another symptom.
A larger map finally appeared
The Nine Realms grew from the recognition that consciousness, identity, emotion, healing, liberation, human capacity, transformation and possibility belong to related but distinct areas of work.
Some questions needed books
The writing became its own branch of the work: psychology, culture, consciousness, ageing and eventually fiction, where some ideas can be explored more honestly because nobody has to pretend they fit on a course slide.
I am still following the questions
Nine Realms Institute is not a monument to a theory I finished years ago. It is where the work continues as new questions, observations and programmes emerge.
How I approach the work
I am comfortable with evidence and mystery occupying the same room.
They just need to wear name badges so we know which is which.
Use what is known
Psychology, neuroscience, biology and established clinical knowledge matter. A mysterious explanation does not become better simply because it sounds more exciting.
Leave room for what is not settled
Human beings also report synchronicity, altered states, intuition, spiritual experience and events that remain difficult to explain. I would rather investigate them carefully than dismiss them automatically.
Keep checking against reality
A model earns its place by helping us see more clearly and work more effectively. If reality keeps disagreeing with the theory, eventually the theory has to lose the argument.
Why Nine Realms Institute exists
Because people are more complicated than most models allow.
And because complexity does not have to mean confusion.
A person can be dealing with trauma and identity at the same time. Biology and meaning can interact. An emotional response can be sensible in one layer and destructive in another. Somebody can be deeply rational and still have experiences they would describe as spiritual, intuitive or impossible to explain.
I wanted a place where those things did not have to be artificially separated before we were allowed to think about them.
That is what NRI became: somewhere to explore human change seriously, without making it sterile and without having to surrender your scepticism at the door.
Where to go from here
You do not need to understand everything I have built.
Start with the part that matters to you now.
If you are here for your own change, the Personal Change section brings together the self-directed programmes. If you work professionally with other people, Practitioner Training explains the professional route. If you want the map itself, begin with the Nine Realms.
If you would rather start without paying anything, there are complete free trainings. And if what you really want is a book and a cup of tea, I have become increasingly supportive of that option too.
From people I have worked with
I can tell you what I think I do. Other people are probably a better test.
Across the years, the comments I value most are usually about the way I think, teach and work with people. These three came from different parts of that history.
Paul Kay
Earlier practitioner training“Martin is a very gifted trainer and a very original thinker.”
James Power
Earlier appointment with Martin“I loved this appointment. It changed my life in so many ways.”
Seema Qadir
Earlier Sanomentology training“Martin gives his time and energy consistently and keeps adding more and more new protocols. Martin is so passionate and genuine in his mission.”
Martin Rothery
Still curious. Still sceptical. Still building.
Thirty-eight years in, I have considerably better questions than I started with. I regard that as progress.