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Welcome To the Insane Asylum – Making Reality Fresh Daily - Chapter 4

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Welcome To the Insane Asylum – Making Reality Fresh Daily

Chapter 4

 

For those who missed chapters 1 thru 3 in this series of 5, may I suggest you click the links below and read from the beginning before moving forward to this chapter? As I said in chapter 1, this isn’t 5 individual articles but rather 1 article broken into 5 chapters for easier consumption. While I did make an effort to ensure some continuity between the sections, it’s minimal and inadequate. Your reading pleasure would be best served if you read the chapters in the order presented. Thank you.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/welcome-insane-asylum-%E2%80%93-our-collective-psychosis-chapter-one

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/welcome-insane-asylum-%E2%80%93-our-collective-psychosis-chapter-2

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/welcome-insane-asylum-or-how-we-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-big-lie-chapter-3

 

 

An Equal and Opposite Force

The power that our conditioning and the Ponzi/government/Fed has over us is essentially an illusion, one that while we may support, is growing weaker by the day. As the Ponzi falls apart, as we fall apart, as the illusion begins to lose its focus and clarity in our minds and thus in our reality, the support structures become increasingly unsteady. Its hold on us rapidly diminishes on an exponential basis.

The more unstable the Ponzi becomes, instability that’s coming from layers upon layers of lies, deceit and deception, the more force must be applied simply to remain in place or slow the decline. The same can be said about ourselves. As we begin to lose our links to reality, as our insanity increases exponentially, the more force of will we must apply to remain functioning. As the systems fail, the collapse progresses rapidly and exponentially. The end comes quickly. Let me explain by using an example from my childhood.

My brother and I were horsing around one day and we starting pushing against each other from opposite sides of a door. Quickly we ramped up to the maximum force we could apply and it became a stalemate, with neither having the power to overcome the other. And we were both rapidly tiring. Since there were no reserves left in either of us, there was no way to quickly escalate and win the battle.

Because we were both at maximum power, even a small drop in effort by either side would quickly be overwhelmed by the other. In this case, I was the first to tire, so I tried to let go and get out of the way at the same time. The door quickly crashed into my face and chest, knocking the wind out of me and bloodying my nose.

The same dynamic is playing out worldwide. Maximum effort is being expended by the Ponzi and its support structures (various governments, banking cabal, Fed etc) in an effort to remain in place. Only in this case, the Ponzi (which is a reflection of our own madness) is fighting against the inevitable collapse of the madness itself. In effect, the Ponzi is being consumed by the escalating effects of the Ponzi, just as we’re being consumed by our own insanity.

The markets are very cognizant of this fact and are eagerly searching for any perceived weakness in the system while at the same time fearful of a total or partial collapse. The participants believe they can somehow not only profit from the destruction but then successfully escape with their gains, just as we believe we aren’t part of the madness and can avoid it’s destructive death throes. Escape with what and to where; by what means and when?

The first sign of any real substantial weakness will start a cascade and bring the system crashing down, which doesn’t necessarily mean governments will fail, though anything goes at this point. But it does appear at the very least that the fiat currency and possibly the economic system’s days are numbered. The real question is when.

To think we can safely escape at the last minute is as delusional as someone waiting until the water is 3 feet deep before trying to escape from the hurricane. The recent flash crash showed us the speed that the stock markets can and will fall. And you can safely assume the government will put a halt to security sales and money distributions and transfers when it gets real bad. Desperate Ponzi men will do desperate things.

A similar battle is occurring between our ego, our conscious mind, outside systemic influences and our subconscious. While the great systemic control forces being applied to the population appear to be overwhelming and controlling, in fact the system is highly unstable and susceptible to a crash if one side gains just a small advantage.

So the logical question is who or what has the ultimate advantage? From where I’m standing, the survivors will be those who retain or regain some semblance of sanity and who’ve already done much of the difficult internal work of finding emotional and spiritual centeredness.

 

Control through Apathy and Conflict

Let’s return to the citizens at the commissioners meeting. Once they saw that the impossible was in fact possible, that they were able to resist the commissioners, they made this new possibility, this new perception, “real”. And they created this new reality again and again simply by believing it’s possible. Nothing else changed other than their faith and belief in their own ability to effect change for their own benefit.

They made this new perception their own reality primarily because they wanted it to be their reality. So in effect they created their own positive feedback loop to benefit those inside the loop rather than be exploited by others. Either we create our own reality or we live within someone else’s reality.

Since our perception of reality directly affects how we interact with “our” reality, in many ways we make our reality fresh every day. Only we often make it exactly the same way as yesterday because our perception hasn’t changed. The people at the meeting were previously apathetic in response to their perceived powerlessness brought about in part by their fear. But now they created a positive feedback loop beneficial to them (with initial help from my friend) which helped them to subvert their old conditioning.

One could say this is literally the power of positive thinking or belief, which is another way of saying the power of the herd mentality working in and for the best interest of the herd. This local section of the herd is becoming sentient, self aware of its ability to change its reality to something more agreeable and beneficial. The power has always been there. They’re simply harnessing it for the first time.

Apathy is an emotional defense mechanism used to deal with one’s own perceived weakness. “Whatever, who cares, same ole same old, nothing we do matters so go with the flow and take care of yourself.” In a way, this also applies to those of us who are caught up in the endless cycle of fighting among ourselves. We don’t dare challenge our abuser, but we want to release our anger, so we attack each other instead. Our apathy is acted out as aggression against anyone other than those whom we really wish to attack and topple.

Once we enter the devastating cycle of apathy, we become bound within our own gravity well of helplessness. We’re rarely able to break free because the only energy we can muster is used to increase our apathy and the force of the gravity well itself. In order to free ourselves, among other things we must admit we supported the very system that enslaved us, an extremely uncomfortable and emotionally charged proposition.

This is one of the reasons social violence is rarely directed at leadership and often back at ourselves. The submissive slave mentality, the frozen apathetic mind, simply can’t revolt to any significant degree against the master. So the mob acts out it’s aggression on other more vulnerable groups. On a personal level, depression could be considered inwardly directed violence repeatedly applied. We reenact being traumatized again and again, often unable to break the vicious cycle. We do this because unconsciously we’re unable to face the root of our own trauma, our own victimization of ourselves.   

To break through this pain means not only that we must accept that we can/could have resisted, but we must also take responsibility for our part in the mess. We won’t push through this pain unless we can see a quantifiable benefit, sometimes just a way out, which requires narrowly tuning our internal radio station to “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM) at least for the first push out. As nice as it sounds to say we did something for others, at this early stage in the centering, we must be acting solely for ourselves. Nothing focuses the mind quite like the certain knowledge of imminent death or great pain, which removes all the clutter and excuses in one quick swipe.

We begin this emotional and spiritual tuning by looking inward and conducting an honest appraisal of our own part in this dance of self enslavement and servitude. We must clean house internally if we’re to begin the healing process. If we study 12 step recovery programs (alcohol, drugs, sex, abuse etc) we’ll find that this is the heart of an early and long lasting recovery. Very few stay clean and sober long without this internal cleansing. Once the foundation’s been repaired, then the rebuilding can begin. But leave a shaky foundation in place and we’ll have lifelong problems. Or more likely, we’ll simply continue our downward spiral.

By starting small with something easily understood and achieved we build courage, which in turn helps us to push through further pain. We must all build upon our small victories, which develops the experience necessary to go bigger and bigger. How do we move our personal mountain? The answer is devastatingly simple, one wheel barrel at a time. The key is to narrow our gaze and see only the task directly in front of us, focusing just on that one wheel barrel we’ve now loaded with dirt and are pushing away from the mountain.

The control system has convinced us we can’t move mountains. And the control system’s correct. We can’t……in one big push. That’s the illusion that’s promoted by us and others to keep us immobilized; it’s all or nothing. But we don’t need to do it all at once. We can move the mountain one wheel barrel at a time. Anyone can. Once we push through this falsely perceived and promoted high hurdle, and we do this through the application of rigorous honesty, we begin to understand that it’s us who control the chains that bind us to our servitude.

This cleansing and rebuilding starts small, with our own personal affairs and those of our friends, neighbors and community. It’s entirely realistic thinking to believe we can change our conditions by our own hand and for our own benefit. The powers control us only by our consent, usually through active encouragement of our apathy. Remove or reduce our apathy and empower the individual through rigorous honesty (and a push in the right direction) and we’re no longer held captive to the lies, be they internal or external.

Our overall freedom begins within each individual, not in any mass movements, riots or strikes. The only strike we need to call is our own personal strike from self deception and false hope seeking. We’re easily controlled when we self deceive. We in effect blackmail ourselves.

It’s quite simple really. We’re playing a game with ourselves against ourselves. We know what cards we hold but we pretend we don’t know. Consider playing a game of cards between you and your ego. Your ego knows all your psychological triggers. You, the conscious you, will consistently lose, which is precisely what’s happening.

 

Rethinking the Problem and the Solution 

At one time, I thought the only way to “win” was to raise large armies of enraged citizens who would then storm the walls of power and wrestle “it” back. Though I admit I was never quite sure exactly what I would be wrestling back. I believed I needed an army because I’d been conditioned to believe I needed to move the mountain in its entirety and all at once.

And I was conditioned to believe this so that I would never even try; logically assuming I could never accomplish the task. It was only after I realized that we’re always powerful and will forever be powerful and that on a daily basis we’re conditioned to surrender our power that I recognized any massed assault against the perceived walls of power was unnecessary.

The towering walls are merely an illusion we’ve created (with plenty of outside help) in our own minds. If you think about it, twenty years ago the federal government was considered much less ominous. So dealing with the occasional corrupt official wasn’t that difficult. Now, after twenty years of escalating governmental and corporate misdeeds and abuse, it looks nearly impossible to get anything done. Incredibly, we support this illusion in order to kill the pain of our impotence and enslavement.

And we mustn’t forget that the people working for or in government are affected in the same manner. We need to stop, step back and consider why people continue to work for entities that are clearly working against their own best interest. We can’t simplistically assume these government workers, along with the rest of the Ponzi, are just “bad” or dumb or incompetent and walk away with an “understanding” that supports our desire to believe we’re powerless.

I don’t care how much we protest we want things to change. As long as we declare we want change but can’t change, either us or the system, we’re caught up in our own insanity. We need to reexamine the problem with fresh eyes, starting with basic assumptions. Since we’re not aware of many of our lies and self deceptions, we have no idea where they are or how far they’ve infiltrated our thinking. So it’s back to the basics. We question everything, which has the effect of establishing a base for clear and logical thinking.

The more we’re abused, the bigger we make the mountain. We see no way out, in the same way a battered spouse sees no way out of her prison while looking out her open front door. From her point of view, it doesn’t matter if the door is open, there’s no way out. In effect, we’re self medicating using self deception and the comfort derived from ignoring choices. “I can’t do anything about the abuse so I might as well make the best of it.” Since we aren’t happy with our enslavement, but we’ve been (self) conditioned to believe we can’t do anything about it, we must establish mythical but plausible reasons for not acting to save ourselves, thus increasing the spin of our insanity.

This desire to self deceive, created in order to deny the pain any real self awareness of our condition would bring us, leaves us wide open to all sorts of other lies and conditioning. We don’t need to break these illusions down from the outside; we simply need to stop supporting them from the inside. But this can only be done if we reject the self deception and lies that are the basis of both the internal and external control system. This is why I always say “we” are the control system. We are the foundation and building blocks of the very walls we wish to bring down.

An understanding this simple must be, and always will be, dismissed as crazy, unrealistic, unworkable and fantasy by those who have bought into the illusion. To accept any idea contrary to our illusion is the kiss of death to our illusion. Or more accurately, to those of us who have become emotionally and physically dependent upon the illusion, there can be no alternative to the illusion. Our own reality cannot accept any alternatives, for in our mind to do so would be suicide. We’ve built up the problem to such enormous proportions that a simple solution that requires our own actualization rather than blame shifting is totally unacceptable.

This is what I mean when I say we’re co-dependent. The amazing thing is that the illusion dies on its own without our support. No need to storm the walls since we are the walls. And we buy into the illusion by supporting its lies with our own lies. We validate the illusion by making it our own illusion, by making their reality our reality with the power of our own belief.

 

Wow! Who was That?

If the power of another’s belief is extremely strong, it often overwhelms and controls ours, particularly if we’re uncertain of our own belief or desire. This in a nut shell is the power of the herd when scattered or the mob when concentrated. This is also the power emanating from some individuals that we describe as “presence” or as “charisma”. This can’t be faked or substituted, though that’s precisely what the political and corporate image makers are trying to do.

And we’re susceptible to this image making manipulation because we’re all searching for this very power within, though I contend many of us are just acting like we’re searching. Careful what we wish for, right? The problem with being a success is that we can no longer acceptably fail, meaning the standard has been raised by our own hand, thus we can’t hide any longer by failing to succeed.

Because we constantly find ourselves lacking through (self) conditioning and indoctrination we’re much more willing to accept artificial imitations as genuine (imitations). The same applies to many human created religious movements. We’re seeking religious salvation and divine answers outside of us because we don’t have the desire, courage or faith to find them within.

We empower our religions just as we empower our governments and corporations. The sad irony is that not only do we fail to see within us the power we possess, but by failing to see the obvious we then empower and embody into an external entity all that we wish to find within. We give away what we claim we don’t posses. Which makes sense because then we aren’t responsible for the use (and abuse) of that power. Let someone else do the dirty work and receive the blame while I sit back and reap the rewards. There’s no risk on the hamster wheel.

The very power that we can’t find or see within ourselves is then projected onto and into an external entity. We deny having the very power we transfer to others. Once we’ve been conditioned to fail, success is much more frightening than to “naturally” fail. Failure breads more failure and we actually derive some pleasure from succeeding at our failure, particularly if we’re emotionally rewarded to fail.

 

Making our Realty, one Pill and one Bill at a Time

Let’s look at a phenomenon that illustrates the power within, which is easily measured by the pharmaceutical industry. Of course, I’m talking about the placebo effect. Someone’s given an inert pill or capsule for an illness or malady and told that the “medicine” in the pill will make them feel better. And for a mathematically significant number of people, they do feel or get better.

How can this be? How can something that’s not a “medicine” act like a medicine? Is that really what’s going on here or is the “reality” offered or invoked by the “medicine” accepted by the patient as “real” and thus the patient adopts the, or conforms to the, new reality.

Interestingly, when these inert pills are shaped and colored like other medications rather than left as a simple round white pill, the effect is even greater. And when neither the patient nor the care giver knows this actual pill is a placebo, the placebo effect becomes stronger. When both the patient and the care giver truly believe the inert pill is a “medicine”, the placebo effect is greater still. What’s going on here?

Part of the effect seems to be tied to the patient’s belief in the fake “medicine” and part is tied to the care givers belief in the fake “medicine”. Symbolically, the taking of a pill for an illness could be considered an acceptance of both the reality of the illness and of the power of the “medicine” to affect the reality of the illness.

And the placebo effect changes for unknown reasons, varying from day to day and person to person. While the dynamic behind the placebo effect is not understood, the effect itself is so well known and so completely trusted to be “authentic” that it’s used to measure the effectiveness of actual “real” medicines. If the “real” drug is no better than the “fake” drug (the placebo) the “real” drug is considered ineffective. But no one dares to look too closely to see what makes the “fake” placebo effective because that might just open a can of worms.

Yes, there have been studies but very few. It’s clear an industry dependent upon selling drugs doesn’t wish to fund it own destruction if they were to prove inert pills could “cure” disease and illness. Nor will a government fund a study that might undermine its illusion of power. Understanding the placebo effect just might empower the individual. Can’t have a bunch of empowered minds asking difficult questions as they wake to their own power, can we? Even the doctors concede that the patient’s will, desire and belief are often the difference between healing and dying.

While there might be numerous explanations for some of what’s going on here, it seems pretty clear that the power of one’s belief, and the combined power of two or more people’s belief, either has the power to alter reality or the power to convince someone to alter their own reality. In the face of this and hundreds of other anomalies, outliers I like to call them, how can we say that reality is static and unchanging and we can’t affect it? At least the scientists hedge themselves when they say the placebo effect doesn’t seem to conform to the “known” laws of nature. 

 

From the Pill to the Bill

The placebo concept blends nicely with our belief in symbolic paper “money” or currency as “real” and of our acceptance of the reality of money when we agree to accept it in return for our “real” labor. We then “spend” the real money for other goods and services, thus perpetuating this reality. Accepting and spending money is our symbolic acceptance of the fiat currency system and of our part in the economic/social/cultural illusion. It really opens the mind when we begin to follow the rabbit down the hole, doesn’t it?

Let’s look closer at this “belief” concept from the currency point of view, one that we’re more familiar with. Just as our currency is only as strong as our faith and belief in our currency, the powers that be are only as strong as our faith and belief in the powers that be. If we believe in our currency, if we believe it’s strong, it will remain strong. As well, if we believe in the powers that be, if we believe they’re strong and powerful, they will remain strong. It doesn’t matter if we hate them as long as we believe they’re strong, or at least stronger than you and I.

Slightly off topic, while I believe Gold is much more than just an element on the periodic table, Gold’s detractors try to demean the power of Gold by saying it’s just a piece of shiny metal, a barbarous relic as they like to say. In fact, it can and has been seen in the past as exactly the same thing as fiat currency, a symbol of the ultimate strength or weakness of our faith and belief in it. The difference is that humans have believed in Gold for thousands and thousands of years.

And this belief is universal, crossing cultural and language barriers. Fiat currencies come and go but Gold has always been seen as “real”, meaning either Gold is more than an illusion or this illusion is extremely persistent. This is the ultimate power of Gold, its universal acceptance as a store of value and its ability to continuously attract and embody our faith and belief in its stability and power.

A few years ago on a hunch I conducted some unscientific experiments with 2 infants just a few months old using Silver and Gold coins as well as Gold plated coins. When I displayed the various coins to the infants, always giving them a choice between two different coins, the two infants most often reached for the real Gold.

This occurred even when I controlled for weight by not letting them hold the coins, controlled for inscriptions by using coins of similar size and engraving and controlled for left/right bias by switching hands. Somehow they even understood the difference between plated and solid Gold. There’s something about Gold that can’t be explained and those that deny this “power” are denying themselves or talking their book.

 

They Need Us

Ultimately the government’s power is a derivative of our own real and natural power, which is expressed and quantified as our belief in the government’s power. Because governmental and elite power derives from us we can easily withhold our consent and belief in “them” and collapse them in the same way our currency would collapse if we simply withheld our belief in it. There are of course consequences for our actions. But doing this doesn’t mean the entire system would collapse, though the powers that be constantly tell us this would indeed happen if we removed them from power.

This same false promise of collapse is promoted by the abusive male spouse when he tells the battered wife she can’t live without him. Of course she can, just as we can live without our abusers. The abuser (aka the government, Fed and private banking and corporate interests) has conjured up an emotional and intellectual spell (to use an old maligned term) or an imaginary meme, which can also be called an alternative reality. And the battered spouse (we) has agreed to accept, consciously and/or unconsciously, the power of the alternative reality/spell/meme. We are the active ingredients that can break the cycle of violence and abuse quickly, though we often see it as nearly impossible.

The insane spouse abuser (aka government/Fed etc) is entirely captured and controlled by his insanity and rarely stops the cycle of abuse. We often hear an abuser say that he didn’t know what came over him and that he just couldn’t stop. Of course, he often blames the abused for his actions. I suspect he really is a bit surprised and confused by his own behavior, just as many recovering alcoholics and drug addicts admit they also were very confused by their inability to stop. Regardless, the insane abuser is going to continue to abuse anyone he can control just as our government and private corporations will continue to abuse anyone they can continue to control. We are willingly giving our abusers their power by remaining under their control/spell/meme.

I understand that the reader may chaff at my use of the word “willingly”, which is the reason I’ve spent page after page explaining the concept and manifestation of our insanity. Speaking for myself, I know that I will seek refuge in the comfort of self victimization so that I don’t have to do the hard work of self examination. I’ve often found that I set myself up to fail by placing unrealistic barriers in my way or by enabling precisely those I say I wish to break free from.

From where I stand, that’s the definition of willing, though I understand there are mitigating factors. That’s the reason for this long dissertation, to explain the nuances. But if we can’t examine this dynamic honestly and recognize our part in the dance, we’ll never break free from the insanity. What I’m really saying when I use the term “willingly” is that we don’t wish to exercise our innate and natural power to stop the abuse for a variety of reasons. And that’s a bitter pill that our ego doesn’t wish to swallow.

I need to make it absolutely clear here that I’m neither victim bashing nor blame shifting. I was subjected to terrible abuse for many years and I’m intimately aware of this dynamic. It’s abundantly clear that it’s the sole responsibility of the abuser to stop the abuse and that we must demand every single abuser stop their abuse in every single case of abuse. Period! But we must also find the courage to discuss why the abused remains inside the cycle of abuse. We must do this because this same dynamic is at play within our culture and our country.

When we remove our support of the powers that be (abuser) only the powers that be (the abusers) running the machine (this reality) will collapse, just as the people at the top of government always collapse when half the population shows up in the streets. The people in the streets are removing their faith and belief in the current powers and the powers collapse. The exchanges, banks, governmental services and the economic system all remain in place and operational to a greater or lesser extent after the fact.

They need us; we don’t need them. We have bought into their lies regarding their value to us and the system they’ve constructed to enslave us. For now, all we really want is for the structure to remain in place after they’re gone. We need to detonate our own psychic neutron bomb, killing the powers that be, but leaving the system intact. Once they’re gone and our sanity begins to return, then we can begin to change the systems. It doesn’t all need to change tomorrow. That feeling of urgency is false.

When we’re apathetic, we don’t resist or directly support the powers that be, and thus we willingly and consciously relinquish our power to them. We don’t actually hand our power over to them as much as we don’t apply our power against them. They don’t need to resist that which is not brought to bear against them. This has the effect of reducing our collective strength which is equivalent to adding to theirs.

I sometimes think of this concept in military terms. Ultimately an army is only as strong as the amount of force it can muster and bring to bear against an opposing army at any one time and place. A solider not available to fight doesn’t need to be opposed by the enemy. How we prepare ourselves, how we perceive our role, our readiness and our mission directly determines our effectiveness and thus the reality we project or accept. If we’re missing from the battle, the other side doesn’t need to fight as hard or bring as many troops to bear. Ever wonder how 5% of the population controls the other 95%?

 

It’s not What you have but How you use it

Let’s revisit the commissioners meeting one last time for our final lesson. A year later, the number of people attending the monthly meeting remains at around 30. But of those 30, easily 20 or more are now active participants in the governing process. Their apathy has been replaced with a belief in themselves and each other. And it isn’t always the same 30 people at these meetings.

As new people rotate into the meetings, they learn the lessons publically demonstrated by others in the herd of what an engaged and proactive citizen’s responsibility is. Since more of the citizens at these meetings are proactive, this essentially makes the same force (30 citizens) much more effective. Essentially they’ve leveraged their power while still using the same number of people. The herd is naturally teaching others in the herd through demonstrated public behavior.

While the commissioners see the same number of faces this year as they did last, those faces are now asking questions and demanding answers. And the commissioners are now much more responsive and accommodating. Their arrogance has been replaced with respect and even enjoyment now that they feel they’re working with the citizens rather than in a vacuum. It’s no longer a thankless task.

One commissioner told my friend last month that he now enjoys the meetings even though he still doesn’t like being challenged. The leaders are being retrained and reenergized. The commissioners, after their initial shock and resistance, have conceded to the changed reality and have accepted it, thus conforming to and confirming the new reality. The reality changed because the citizens wanted it to change. The citizens led and the leaders are now following.

It’s our apathy that empowers them. A dam that doesn’t need to withstand very much pressure doesn’t need to be very strong. Pull up pictures of beaver dams if you don’t believe me. And since 95% of us are either fighting each other over the dwindling scraps or sitting on the sidelines in abject apathy, the “towering” walls of the powers that be need only resist 5% of the population. Their walls are only as strong as our apathy is strong.

Energize just 1% more of the population, from 5% to 6% of total population, and we’ve increased the pressure on the powers that be by 20%. Energize 5% more of the population, from 5% to 10%, and we’ve doubled (100%) the pressure on the powers. This is why it’s so important to them to keep us dazed and confused and thus unaware of the power and pressure we can quickly bring to bear against them. As they lose control, they’re rapidly ramping up overt control techniques because they’re fully aware how precarious their situation is.

Remove our apathy and we remove their strength. They feed off our apathy and indifference as well as our infighting, which is why our control system encourages our apathy and division. This is done by way of our own narcissistic self indulgent behavior and by diversion tactics used to divide and set each upon the other. To overcome this, all that’s required is the spark, particularly now that the control system is extremely destabilized.

The kindling and firewood for the spark to ignite is all around us. Or like I said in an earlier article, the snow to create the avalanche is already in place everywhere we look. If we act, we’ll begin the process of teaching the herd how to teach itself. If we continue to disempower ourselves, we cannot empower the others. Thus we, meaning me and you and him and her and them and those, must empower internally before we can disempower the powers that be. This is why we must first find ourselves, then find the others. Once we begin our healing, it will rapidly spread to others.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/avalanches-and-tipping-points

 

Fear the Nailman

OK, so now what do we do? Well there are two final concepts I wish to discuss, that of critical mass and the catalyst. But before doing so, we must discuss our own fear. No matter what psychological games I play on myself, that mountain appears to still be in front of me. And I don’t know if I have the courage within myself or others to do the hard work that will enable me to see the illusion.

Or we might say “yes I understand the mountain’s an illusion, just as the walls of the powers that be are an illusion. But I’m frightened and unsure what to do”. Fair enough, so am I. The first step is to talk about our fears. By doing so, by dragging the monster out from under the bed and the boogeyman out of the closet, we go a long way to disarming our fear.

I said way back in chapter one that we’re only as sick as our deepest darkest secrets. Well, we’re also only as immobilized as our deepest darkest fears. So before I begin with the final two concepts, let me relate a personal experience about fear. It’s often easier to create our own reality when we’ve seen others do so. And “fear” is simply a reality we can both empower and disempower at will.

I’d worked in residential construction for nearly 20 years, from when I was 16 to my mid 30’s, encompassing the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Towards the end of this period, I found myself working for someone else on a crew of one and a quarter building a house. In other words, I was doing 90% of the work and he would show up when I needed a second body to lift walls and place floor joists.

As usual, I was working alone one morning, on top of a step ladder with a compressed air gun nailing down the double top plate of a wall. I was reaching with the gun in my right hand while pushing the wall in place with my knee and left hand. A strong gust of wind pushed me off balance while I was just about to nail the top plate next to my knee. I missed the top plate and shot the 3 ½ inch glued and barbed framing nail into my left leg about six inches above the knee. Can you say Ouch?

From what little I could tell, it was the perfect shot, directly through the center of the leg at a slight angle, through the center of the leg bone and out the other side but not through the skin on the back side. The only thing that prevented it from going through and out of the other side was the head of the nail. I’d just shot myself, nailing the leg muscle to the leg bone, and I was all alone and unable to walk, barely able to get off the ladder. And this was before cell phones.

Then I got lucky. I expected to be working alone all day, but my boss showed up 30 minutes later because he’d forgotten something. He quickly called the ambulance and along with the fire department they got me off the second story and into the emergency room in about an hour and a half, the delay caused by the lack of stairs in the unfinished home. Once the emergency room doctor saw the x-rays, the on-call orthopedic surgeon was summoned.

Unfortunately, for reasons never fully explained to me, the surgeon took over two hours to show up. Personally I think he was off in a motel somewhere. The ER doctor didn’t want to order pain meds because I’d been handed off to the missing surgeon. So I was basically abandoned medically while call after call was placed for the MIA surgeon. I’d been in pain now for over three hours with what was effectively a gunshot wound through the bone. And quite frankly I was getting very worried and was nearing panic when suddenly almost all of the pain disappeared.

This lasted about 2 or 3 minutes and I was baffled. At first I thought something bad had just happened, that maybe I was going back into shock. But I felt OK, not dizzy or cold or disorientated. I was thinking clearly and I was fully aware of my situation and my surroundings. I’d just decided to start hollering for someone to come into the exam room when the pain came blasting back. Oh my, now that was a shock.  

For about 5 minutes I was stunned and somewhat befuddled. What had just happened? What the hell was going on? And then a realization and understanding swept over me. It wasn’t the pain that had disappeared and then reappeared; it was my fear. The fear I was experiencing (where the hell is the doctor, what are they going to do about this nail, will I be able to walk, will I be able to work) was creating a emotional positive feedback loop that exaggerated the pain which exaggerated the fear and so on.

Basically my emotional state was more of a problem than the nail, at least as far as the pain was concerned. Since I knew that it was now possible to be fear free, meaning the “reality” of no fear had just been demonstrated to me, I decided to try it on my own, in effect to experiment. I knew I could be without fear because I’d just experienced this reality for a few minutes.

Rather than try to understand why it happened, I wanted to focus on making it happen once again so the pain would go away. So I decided that I had no fear. I’m not talking about hoping or wishing or thinking or praying or trying not to be afraid or trying not to have fear. I decided fear was not present because it did not exist at that moment and time.

This is an example of how something becomes real or a part of our reality simply because we have “proof” it’s real, regardless of how silly or impossible it might seem. I consider this the central core to our madness, this constant need for proof of our reality before we accept our reality. Or let’s reverse that sentence. This is an example of our denial of certain realities if the “reality” can’t be proven to be “real”. Let that concept sink in for a minute.

Consider how much we depend on others, mostly authority figures of every kind, to tell us whether something is real or not. And if we’re told it’s not real, we dismiss it from our minds and thus our reality in the same way I dismissed the fear from my reality. If we’re told something is “real” we believe it pretty much without question. “They attacked us because they hate our freedom; now shut up and get back on the hamster wheel.”

I knew the absence of fear could be “real” because I had just experienced it, in the same way we know our feet will touch the floor when we roll out of bed in the morning. We never even consider that the floor won’t be there when we swing our legs off the bed. We don’t question it because it’s there, it’s real, with such a huge degree of certainty that there’s no doubt whatsoever.

This “reality” has been “proven” to us repeatedly each and every morning. We don’t doubt it because it’s “real”. This isn’t just an intellectual exercise. We approach so much that’s in life in exactly the same manner, thus making real something that might not be real if we hadn’t been told it was real. For example, every source we turn to tells us that the towering walls and powers that be are impossible to bring down. This is not true yet the vast majority of us believe it to be true, thus making it “real”.

It wasn’t even that I knew I had no fear. I simply accepted the condition of the absence of fear as I would the condition of the floor under my feet and the examination table under my butt. I created the reality by expecting it to be there, which is not the same thing as hoping it will be there or expecting the fear to go away. The fear simply wasn’t there because it did not exist. I can create and empower the fear from within or I can choose not to create and empower the fear from within. I have the inner power to make the fear “real” or not.

 

Do. Or Do Not. There is no Try.

When I related this to a friend a week later, at first he laughed. But then he said it reminded him of that scene from Star Wars where Yoda is training Luke. Luke has just failed to lift the star fighter out of the swamp muck and Yoda scolds him after Luke said he would try again. Yoda says “Do! Or do not! There is no try!” I understand using this movie reference sounds somewhat “out there” but I need to emphasize that there simply was no “try” to be without fear. There just was no fear. It did not exist and it never existed. In fact I had made the absence of fear so “real” that to actually feel fear at that precise moment would have been a contradiction of reality because there was no fear to feel.

I experimented a few minutes turning my fear on and off, of turning the reality of my fear on and off, until I felt I understood how to do it. I was literally going from lots of pain to very little and back again. It was very surreal. The key was to assume total and absolute responsibility for my fear or the absence of my fear. There was no “this situation is making me afraid” or “that nail in my leg is making me frightened” because I make or don’t make whatever reality I want. Nothing makes me do anything. I and I alone control myself and my reality. Only I can “make” me do something. I’m accepted my responsibility for creating my own reality. Nothing else is responsible for making my reality, no matter how uncomfortable it is.

Consider how often we use the word “make” when describing our reality, in particular our emotional reality. You make me mad. I made her angry. She makes me happy. I made my son angry. They made me upset. The actions of the powers that be make me furious. The bankers are making me very upset. Obama makes me furious. In each situation, we’re abandoning our responsibility for our own emotional response. Thus whatever response we present is not our fault. The other person or entity then owns us, which is another way of saying controls us, because we hand over control of our emotional state. This inevitably leads to our physical control.

All there can be is the simple and absolute understanding of the experience of the absence of fear, of being without fear. For example, you’re reading this now. You’re not thinking “I don’t want to be afraid” or “I want this fear to go away” while reading this. You simply aren’t thinking about fear because there’s no fear present. I was creating that condition in my mind. Actually it “felt” like I was turning on and off a switch that was literally located in the back of my head. Something had shown me how to create an alternative reality. And like the good student that I am, I followed instructions.

Suddenly the surgeon walked into the exam room with a bunch of people in tow. After 10 minutes of looking at x-rays and examining my leg, he turns to me in the most matter of fact manner considering the situation and lays out two choices for me. They can rush me off to the operating room, cut my leg open and extract the barbed and cemented nail from the center of my leg bone. This choice could subject me to infection risk as well as a long recovery time because of all the cutting and possible sawing.

“Or we can take care of it with these.” He turns around and in his hands are two very shiny and beautifully crafted vice grips, one large and one slightly smaller. He didn’t need to tell me what he wanted to do because it was obvious. He wanted to grab the head of the nail with the vice grip, lock the jaws closed and twist it out. I was a bit shocked that one choice involved surgery and the other involved a pair of vice grips.

I asked about the danger of pulling the nail out in the exam room and he spent a few minutes talking about ripping open an artery and hemorrhaging, breaking or shattering the bone from the torque applied when twisting the nail out and even tearing the muscle with the barbs. “No big deal” is how he summed it up. I asked him for his recommendation and he flashes this big smile and says “I’m here, you’re here, let’s get the party started.”

After a few seconds of thought I told him to go for it. He asked me if I wanted a shot for the pain and I said no, I had the pain under control. He asked again about the pain, then looked at me and said no more. I did say I’d need a minute to prepare before he started. Five minutes later he said he was ready and I went to that place and flipped that switch I’d just learned about, where there is the absence of fear because there is no fear.

As it turned out, the “extraction” was much more difficult than he expected, what with the barbs and cement. After about a minute of twisting and pulling the nail as one would a corkscrew, he finally was able to pull it completely out. Both he and I (after it was done) were astounded that I was able to bear the procedure without crying out in pain or using the second pair of vice grips on his ear or nose in retaliation. BTW, 25 years later I still have the nail and the x-rays and I regularly pull them out (pun intended) to remember that important lesson.

One week later, when I visited his office for a follow up, I asked him if he’s normally that cavalier and forthright when talking to patients under similar circumstances. He said no, he doesn’t normally and he’d thought about it often, wondering what came over him. He said he didn’t do anything different than he normally would, meaning the same choices would still have been offered.

But when I persisted with my questions, he did say he felt the emotional situation was “light” and “easy going” and he “felt” (I remember he had a confused look on his face when he said this) he should act the same way. He seemed to be genuinely surprised by what he had experienced. This brings to mind the concept of mirroring, how when talking to someone I mirror their actions or they mirror mine, such as if I cross my arms the person will often do so as well.

The surgeon had unconsciously been mirroring my lack of fear and my calm demeanor. He didn’t walk into a crisis situation. I’d created in him an alternative reality simply because he was exposed to my reality. This is part of the dynamic of herd behavior on an individual basis. Understanding the concept of mirroring is important because it can be used as a source of strength and inspiration when we rally those around us or when we seek support from those around us.

Obviously the point of this story is to illustrate to the reader the power of a belief or awareness of a “truth” or “reality”. More to the point, the understanding of the power I already had and still have within myself, which I used to create an alternative reality (in this case the absence of fear) or to alter the reality I was experiencing. What helped me to believe an alternative reality could be possible was simply that I had already experienced it when the fear disappeared for those 5 minutes.

It’s important to understand that regardless of whether or not I had experienced the lack of fear beforehand doesn’t mean I could or could not create the absence of fear now or later. The “proof” had nothing to do with the alternative reality, other than to build conviction in my mind that the alternative reality could be “real”, thus I could make it real. It was the belief that was the active ingredient here, not the proof. The power was and is always there. We simply chose or don’t chose to utilize it.

Our fear is entirely under our control because we make it real or not. No one makes us afraid or fearful, we make ourselves afraid or fearful; the other person simply presents circumstances that we’re conditioned to believe the proper emotional response is fear. Understanding the root of the power of our fear is the key to dealing it, just as one understands that the power of our currency is our emotional response to it.  

To quote Albert Einstein “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one.” The illusion appears to be so “real” that we’re completely seduced by its form and function. We don’t ever consider that something is not real, that something might be an illusion. We use the same words to describe a house or a rock as we do to describe an emotional state of being. Thus it’s “real” simply because of our utter and complete acceptance of it as real.

The power of our minds to create this illusion in all its magnificent detail and depth is so overwhelming that we believe the reality we’re creating is more “real” than that which is actually creating it, our consciousness, our mind, our spiritual being. Sadly, we’re so thoroughly lost in the woods that we use the “proof” of our everyday reality, which is created by us, to disprove the power of our reality’s creator, our own innate and natural power. We are mistaking the finger pointing to the moon as the moon itself.

In Chapter 5 of this examination of our collective insanity, we’ll finish our discussion on fear and then look at how imagination opens our minds and creates our reality. We’ll also examine how reaching critical mass and being the catalyst is the key to creating the changed reality we all want.

Note: If you’d like to explore more on the subject of the dream like nature of reality and how we manifest our reality, then I urge you to spend some time visiting the web site of Paul Levy, who has devoted most of his adult life to exploring this question. Paul Levy has studied Carl Jung for decades and interprets Jung’s writings and philosophy in a very unique way. By way of disclosure, I (Cognitive Dissonance) am not Paul Levy nor do I have a business relationship with Paul Levy, other than to use his private practice services from time to time. Everything on his web site is free including an extensive library of articles.

http://www.awakeninthedream.com/

 

Cognitive Dissonance - 06/11/2010

 

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Fri, 06/11/2010 - 21:45 | 409272 msjimmied
msjimmied's picture

 

The intro is not the best, but do scroll down to the essay.

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Physics-David-Bohm-Holographic-Universe.htm

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 21:34 | 409261 kayl
kayl's picture

I don't know CD, are you looking for self-actualization and enlightenment or a way out of this economic crisis?

As for self-actualization, I agree that all beings should go through this process and unfetter themselves from cultural and ideological limitations.

However, when I found out that the banks don't make loans, but rather access your own credit at the US Treasury. Then, they withhold your credit ( illegally) and make you pay it back with interest-- a thing that you own fully-- that pisses me off. And I don't blame myself for this kind of trickery. I blame the average high school/university education that most of us are subjected.

If my parents had been masons, judges, lawyers, employees of the US Treasury, or high level banking executives, I would have known better. But nobody told me the real truth of my commercial transactions with the bank.

As you say, it takes pain sometimes to wake up to your own powers. Between 2003 and 2004, I invested the better part of my retirement funds into real estate. Two rentals, my principal residence, and a warehouse for business. I got loans for these properties, but when the economy turned I paid off two and let the rentals go into foreclosure (one is still in extend and pretend land). This pain made me investigate the mortgage loans and the Uniform Commercial Code. 

The power I took back: I wrote a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and outlined the precise manner in which I was defrauded by the bank. Thereafter, the bank called me and then asked what I wanted to have my rental back. I told the CEO of the bank that I wasn't going to send any money (money is just debt notes anyway). What I would do is discharge my debt by sending the bank three pieces of the paper (effectively writing my own debt notes): the presentment "Accepted for Value," the Bill of Exchange, and the performance bond (promise to pay). I also sent them a new offer saying to discharge the debt, rescind the foreclosure notice, and file a new Deed of Trust with the County Recorder. In a few weeks, I'm going to send them a Confirmation of Discharge of debt for this account and order the bank to send me a reconveyance on the property.

They never answer, and they are in dishonor now.

If there is any illusion in all this, it's that we think we know how to handle our commercial affairs. In fact, the TPTB have done everything to hide how to handle our own commercial affairs. One cannot do this without first filing a UCC Financing Statement.  The bottom line is that I have been productive all my life, and they have contrived to steal my productive capacity. Now I am going to file UCC recoupment for every property I have ever owned and got loans for.

Since I am not a federal employee, I will not file a 1040 form as a federal employee. From now on, I will file my forms to get the income tax I paid to the bank, butcher, gas station or whatever returned to me, as it should be. Is it my fault too that my CPA filed falsely claiming I'm a federal employee knowing I would need to pay tax?

As I posted previously, I am for getting rid of all the big lies.

So tell me, since I am not a federal employee, why has my CPA been preparing my 1040 forms to lead me to pay taxes? Is that my fault too? 

As far as I'm concerned, this is no illusion-- I've been ripped off and I don't like.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 21:06 | 409238 whoopsing
whoopsing's picture

Thank's CD!World-class stuff!(I gotta go read # 3 now)

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 20:54 | 409226 Sad Sufi
Sad Sufi's picture

CD, I appreciate your exploration.  I especially resonate with idea and practice of examining the "obscurations" or the veils of our personality/ego that keep us in a familiar place.  By simply being with and examining and experiencing the delusions and beliefs and patterns, they disolve naturally over time.

When I get impatient, then I can ask, rightfully, "what is it I think I am going losing by this issue or "problem" arsing.  "Who" is it that is struggling to "arrive," or "obtain," and where do they think they are going to "get."  Other questions: what is fear, what is obtaining?

Keep up the good work.

 

 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 03:58 | 409475 StychoKiller
StychoKiller's picture

"I am NOT the biocomputer. I am NOT the programmer. I am NOT the programming. I am NOT the programmed. I am NOT the program."

John C. Lily, "The Center of the Cyclone"

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 20:44 | 409219 velobabe
velobabe's picture

I  S W E A R    Y O U   M E N,,,,  your absolutely gone. your utterly hilarious.

do you realize this website, ZH is the direct opposite of porn sites.

male bonding keyboarding men, getting in touch with their zen side.

sorry, guys but..................i am quite tickled, to witness this phenomenal occurrence.

me, i just visited my very first adult pleasure toy store.

really. i don't bs.

im a big girl now.

of course i purchased the best and the sleekest or cheekest.

quite an industry this self pleasuring thing.

well cheerio, i know watching WC soccer for the next couple of weeks, i will probably have to get off on an hourly basis. just wanted to bring some class into my many challenges in life. if you know what i mean.

 

now you know me by now and i probably will never come back to this POST to answer any of your questions.

oh the shop's name was

F A S C I N A T I O N S

ciao, bella†

a u d i o s

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 14:01 | 409761 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

"of course i purchased the best and the sleekest or cheekest."

such a good consumer you were...

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 03:54 | 409474 StychoKiller
StychoKiller's picture

The internet caters to ALL kinds of perversions, including "Mental Masturbation!"

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 20:30 | 409200 Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

hahhahahhahahaaaaah!  CognitiveDissonance, you rock!

I would have posted sooner, but I was basking in a "six degrees of kevin bacon" moment, lol. . .(wiki-able for those unfamiliar). . . was greatly enjoying this installment of yours, when I came to your link to Paul Levy, and burst into laughter.

some in my circle of friends have worked with him, and also know Mark Comings, who wrote the forward to Paul's book - recommend both the book and the intro, here's a juicy excerpt:

 

Paul’s view of the universe as a mass shared dream is congruent with the moment to moment” collapse of the wave function” model of quantum physics. This rigorous, mathematical description of how events unfold indicates that in each moment there are an array of possibilities and that in each moment, only one of those myriad possibilities occurs. The possibility that becomes an actuality is selected in the moment of observation by the act of observation. Quantum physics thus shows us that the unfolding of a physical event is profoundly connected to and impacted by how consciousness, through the act of observation itself, brings that potential event into manifestation. The collapse of the wave function of quantum physics is mediated or determined byte observing consciousness in a similar way that the witnessing consciousness within a dream affects the unfolding of the dream. This reveals the profound parallels between the process by which material events are understood to unfolding physics and the process by which consciousness is involved in creating and shaping how a dream manifests. The dynamics of material process appears to have deep similarity to the dynamics of dreaming. Thus quantum physics provides strong supportive evidence for the dream-like nature of the universe.

http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/?p=289

 

I first came to ZeroHedge because I sensed that the "financial reality" we exist in was going to be the next implosion in the collective "world" - and I wanted to keep tabs on it, even though I don't trade. . . I spent a few weeks just skimming, and grew to enjoy your posts (drawn by your moniker, natch), and began to look out for you here. . .

anyhow, I love that we're only four degrees of separation, and in a week of synchronicites unfolding, I can add your post today.

will be back to what I hope will be a great thread after I go outside for an integrative walk!

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 14:38 | 409789 Implicit simplicit
Implicit simplicit's picture

Interesting person. I like his line of thought as presented in the foward. Immediately did a libray search for the book, but had no luck.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 19:01 | 409908 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"Immediately did a library search for the book, but had no luck."

Are you talking about Paul Levy's book? Don't be put off by the title. It really is about the collective expression of our madness.

http://www.amazon.com/Madness-George-Bush-Reflection-Collective/dp/142590744X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276383481&sr=8-1

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 23:03 | 409342 juangrande
juangrande's picture

science is so behind the curve when it comes to "reality". physics is "discovering" what mystics have always said. remove the filters and everything is clear. physics just keeps changing the filters. the logical mind as an exclusive means of perception will not likely arrive at what is.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 01:10 | 409414 Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

aye, mystics can hold the the time-less truths. . . the mystical scientists are a delight tho' - left brain / right brain & efforting the articulation when words aren't really cutting it, befuddled amusement. . .

what (supposedly) began as a re-action against ignorance & religious indoctrination has been co-opted for profit and control. . . that the "military" seeks to "own the weather" and sees no problem with poisoning "citizens" in the process shows how insane this world is now.

that "they" gender nationstates as "female" then seek to conquer / overthrow them is telling. . . as is gendering nature, then seeking control.

Mother Nature bats last.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 21:24 | 409247 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

CA

Paul Levy and I talk weekly and I've been sharing my series with him before publication here on ZH to get his views and feedback. Or at least Paul gets the early versions. ZH gets the finished product. I stumbled upon Paul about a year ago as I was developing these ideas. I purchased his book and found we were on a similar path, with me bringing up the rear.

It's been interesting getting his input on my view of the collective insanity and it's manifestation. We find that we've often arrived at similar points from different directions that match quite well and it's been a learning experience sharing the process with each other as it unfolds.

Paul doesn't often get the opportunity to talk to someone else that has the same passion for the subject. Many see this as an interesting effect or occurrence within whatever they're studying or researching. Paul and I both feel this is not a side track but the central railroad line.

Of course, Paul has extensively studied it for decades and I'm just a pup at his knee. But we both have found value in our discussions because I bring the layman's point of view and with it the layman's explanation, while Paul brings the extremely detailed and technical exploration. It's been fun comparing notes with each other.

I'm delighted you know of Paul's work. More should and more are each day. 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 00:55 | 409398 Cathartes Aura
Cathartes Aura's picture

ooh, what a gift to be able to talk often with someone as aware as Paul Levy while simultaneously creating your own work - synthesis indeed!  no wonder your writing has so much energy - kudos!

while I've not met or worked with Paul, I have heard tales of his dreaming workshops, and I'm familiar with his concepts. . .although I don't read (books) as much as I once did, I'll definitely find a copy of his "bush" book, lol.

I've been a gypsy since I was old enough to be free to roam, lived in many different spaces, countries even - along the way of course, if you're open, you can sample other folks "realities" from the most mundane to those most heady. . . makes for great memories, stories, indeed. . .

while out walking earlier,  I pondered what might be a good tale to share here, given that yours was so evocative. . .

years ago, while spending a few months in the Chicago area, I joined a group of people in a "workshop" led by a guy they all revered (I was just passing through, so had no expectations nor did he impress me all that much). . . the "goal" was to learn how to "channel healing energy" but he seemed to get sidetracked with a lot of "I see entities! let me extract them for you!" drama, hehe. . . it was entertaining, but also rather uncomfortable, as I really don't like be around "organised belief systems" all that much. . .

anyhow, the final "act" was for everyone to pair up and practice "healing" each other, which again, made me rather uncomfortable, but I went ahead - a rather elegant woman who had been less involved than most in the whole group dynamic made a beeline across the room to me as her partner. . . the leader began giving directions on the "procedure" he was teaching, I closed my eyes. . . and was overcome with what felt like a moving heaviness in my arms, running out towards my fingertips. . . it was palpable, and took me completely by surprise!  I moved my hands as directed, around her "aura" (ie, never actually touching her), then I stopped hearing him speak, and felt where to focus the energy stream, an area where it felt dense, less clear. . . I remember I just wanted it to feel "lighter" - though had no actual word-thoughts around that. . .

and then everyone was all huggy as the leader called an end to the day, and I opened my eyes. . . the woman had tears running down her face, she hugged me, and said she had some disorder of her kidneys (I have no memory of the name, but it was apparently diagnosed as very serious by her doctor), and she felt I had "healed" her. . . still in a non-verbal headspace, I "heard" myself tell her that I had merely held the space for her to heal herself, that no ONE can heal but the self, when it's ready for the dis-ease to be gone. . . I can still see her eyes even now. . .

she tracked me down a few months later, as I'd left chicago soon after - she confirmed that her doctor had "no idea" why, but she was "in remission". . . and a few years later, apparently still. . . I did look into a few "hands on healing" modalities, but realised I didn't want to "be" that. . . and of course, I realise now that there's no real need to "train" or learn techniques, beyond dropping the belief that you can't do it. . . I have always sought the absolute freedom to follow my instincts & whims, investigate whatever I'm drawn to, even if it seems to conflict with something I've found "true" before. . . the older I get, the more grateful I am I've kept that promise to myself.

anyhow, thought you might find a bit to nod at there, hehe!  

and again, thank you for the obvious work you've put into sharing your experiences here, and to the collective "Tylers" for a great, at times eclectic & irreverent, not to mention addictive, site!

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 13:59 | 409757 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

p.s. cogdis, CA & JG also inadvertently both answered your question to me from earlier on energy with much more adequate eloquence that i could have achieved.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 11:28 | 409652 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Cathartes Aura  The Sufis call that Satnam Rasayan. Very effective method of healing when done properly. It's effectiveness being tied to the ability of the "healer" to hold the "space". Personally, I overcame cancer using this technique.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 08:05 | 409541 Gully Foyle
Gully Foyle's picture

 Cathartes Aura 

Funny that is only the second time I read about entities being pulled from bodies.

My ex wife, lying whore bitch she was, belonged to a cult. By the time I met her it was dying out. One afternoon I fell asleep on her couch. When I woke up I felt changed. I asked what she did and she claimed she pulled shit off my body. It was something she picked up from the cult. It was kind of disturbing like some internal motivating force had been excised.

Later I learned Reiki. I would try to practice on total strangers. Like a blind test. I frequently managed to stop chronic pain. What you did was a whole new firehose level.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 18:16 | 409033 brodix
brodix's picture

Cd,

 I see your point, but there are a few more layers to be peeled away before you can really appreciate the layers you are pulling away.

 It's easy to let go of fear when you realize we are all individually on a suicide mission anyway. The question is what it is we are fighting for. What will truly advance the bigger game?

 Reality is a function of expanding energy and contracting mass/structure. Life is constantly pushing out, like grass pushing up through the sidewalk and when it reaches its zenith, it sheds a few seeds, hardens and slowly crumbles back down. The problem is that we need that outer layer, that skin, that shell to give us form and place, but it also defines and limits us. Much like we select leaders, or form governments, businesses, institutions, etc. to provide structure, cohesion and form to further our expansion, but they eventually harden and become the crust that limits any growth not to their advantage. So then this conflict between the organism and its own definition develops, where either the organism sheds this form in order to grow another, larger one, much like a crustacean sheds its shell to grow larger, or the shell grows larger, like a mollusk grows another ring. Eventually though, the organism dies when growing bigger is not possible and its spawn start the cycle over.

 We are humans and our current shell is crumbling as rapidly as those charged with managing it can repair it. This is not just the monetary system, but our religious and political models as well.

 The source of abusive relationships is when the outer shell cannot expand sufficiently to enable the healthy growth of the internal organism. In the traditional nuclear family, the husband plays the role of the shell, protecting and defining the interior organism of the wife and children. When the husband is not able to mediate internal and external pressures, he will crush the internal energy and growth, often producing children who employ the same reactions. This relationship plays out in many of our institutional structures, religious, governmental, business, etc. When they have room and energy to expand and grow, it is ideal from those living in them. Everything is generally good and it's "The American Dream." The problem is when the going gets tough and there isn't enough to keep the children feed and they start complaining and Big Daddy starts getting frustrated. Consider the external pressures Germany considered itself to be under when it perpetuated the holocaust .

 Remember Athens was a Democracy before the Tyrants and Rome was a Republic before the Caesars. Now the world is no longer America's lilypad and we are starting to complain Big Daddy is acting like a tyrant. The fact is the world isn't getting any bigger and the numbers of people and their desires are not taking this into account. Simply overcoming our fears isn't going to resolve this reality, but just make more suicide bombers for whatever causes those without fear believe in.

 It is not a matter of "them," the evil overlords, vs "us," the trampled peoples. Safe to say, if our overlords could give us anything we want, they would, because it would increase their power and prestige. That's how they get that power in the first place. It is only when the pie gets smaller that the chosen few, who keep the structure going, get what they need and everyone else becomes fodder for the machine.

 We are all going to have to start learning the nuances of this balancing act and how we can be parts of it. That's what growing up is about, when you understand the balance between getting and giving. Those at the top do understand they need us, but if we don't find ever more cooperative ways of functioning, there isn't the room for as many and it becomes an increasingly destructive fight over resources. At which point, those at the top are the most brutal tyrants, not compromising politicians.

 A big part of our current mess is this debt based currency. When there wasn't the economic information to determine how much money to introduce and was up to those tribal chieftains we called kings to decide, tying the growth of the money supply to the growth of debt was actually a good idea, but our increasing ability to exploit the difference between debt and productivity is making it ever more outmoded. This doesn't mean using precious metals as the only reliable form of commercial exchange will be particularly efficient either.

 We don't have to rise up and overthrow this system, because it is rapidly melting down, but we do need to start proposing some form of production based currency to take its place, since money is drawing rights to productivity.

 Capitalism has been an effective model, but it is not synonymous with a free market. A market is like an ecosystem, with all number of companies occupying the various niches, cooperating and competing with each other. Capital is the medium in which they function. Those providing this medium are in the position to effectively tax every transaction. If they are a private enterprise, these taxes become exponentially increasing until they essentially own the entire economy. If this medium is a public function, then those taxes go to social and civil purposes, schools, roads, courts, police, etc, which either do not generate sufficient income directly, but are necessary, such as schools, or are best not to run as commercial enterprises, such as police and courts.

 When private banking first arose, these banks were responsibly for prudently maintaining the value of their own currency, or went out of business, but with central banking, this responsibility has been socialized, while profits remain private. Necessarily banking will have to eventually become a public function, like police and the courts, to have a stable and sustainable free market function.

 A debt based currency is inherently unsustainable in a situation of limited resources, since production must always grow to pay off debt and debt must increase in order to grow the money supply necessary for this production.

Another factor is treating money as property, rather than a form of public utility, because the tendency is to accumulate it when the fact remains that excess currency is inflationary. In fact, the Fed controls inflation by borrowing money back. By that logic, excess currency is in the hands of those with excess wealth, so everyone else has to pay them interest, through public funds, in order to control the excess of currency, resulting in them having even more excess currency. This is what is known as a negative feedback loop.

 If people understood money is a form of public commons and subject to the requirements of such, they would be far more careful what value they take from personal relations and environmental resources to convert into money in the first place. This would be healthier for the environment, interpersonal relations and the stability of the money supply.

 More thoughts on why we need to think this through and not just throw off the yoke of our oppression.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 03:47 | 409472 StychoKiller
StychoKiller's picture

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to
burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 18:38 | 409898 Reflexivity
Reflexivity's picture

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.

-- Frederick Douglass


Sat, 06/12/2010 - 06:04 | 409517 brodix
brodix's picture

There is a flip side to everything. For many people, it is about being part of something larger, in order to give themselves more meaning, as well as security. Not to say that desire to belong isn't constantly taken advantage of, but occasionally is does have its moments of glory.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 06:56 | 409522 Miles Kendig
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Humans are by nature social creatures.  A moment of glory can be found in realizing that once you can trust yourself to be completely honest with yourself and do so others sense this and symbiosis is achieved.  The essence of catalyst within the sphere of intra human relationship.  The key being in insisting upon the other achieving truthfulness within themselves and others so that a parasitic structure does not encounter a ripe situation to form.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/S/Symbiosis.html

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 11:14 | 409644 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Miles, although I personally have not reached this level of awareness, I've been told that we also interact on a subtle energetic level where only our "true selves" reside. true as in "this is where I'm at ". no false personas. if we are in relationship with someone- comfortable or uncomfortable- the opportunity to reflect is presented. upon honest reflection, the dysfunctional aspect of the relations dissolves for all parties involved. essentially an energetic shift happens in the inter-dynamics. and it only takes one person's awareness to resolve the disfunction. back to "work on yourself, it's not their fault" theme. on a practical level, I've seen it happen although I can't testify to the modus operandi. What do you think?

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 15:43 | 409781 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Some have referred to part of this concept as the "wounded healer" and this only partially gets at it.  This "healer" reflection is rooted in ancient Greek philosophy and just like Plato's Republic's "most assuredly" it fails to appreciate the catalyst that is the warm embrace of "the reality" that life is a process of being focused on living with and in life rather than a process of dying without really living or embracing the pure joy of life and the energy that process creates.   And in living one begins to appreciate that all life creates virtuous, self sustaining cycles of energy production and expenditure that within ourselves, in community with the whole or a portion of human society or indeed the whole physical universe forms the basis for what we sense as this "reflective" process.

When we are truly living as whole & complete persons as we are able we first begin to sense this dynamism (beyond infancy) in human community and this forms a basis to what many perceive as human "magnetism".  When a "cold" or "dysfunctional" human is confronted with this reflected energy the responses I have seen most often, both in myself and others is either flight or an overwhelming sense of warmth.  This cold or warmth state reflects itself back to the other human in this community of relationship and a positive feedback loop of energy is created.  Aware on a conscious level or not. 

I liken it, and poorly to a + & - poles of a battery, but it seems far more dynamic on the whole than a battery since the energy that is created is elemental and as self sustaining as we permit within ourselves.  This is when the ego attempts to reassert itself.  This is a point in process where the necessity of natural catalyst again asserts itself and the potential of "reflective" synergies which was the catalyst back at the point of the feedback loops inception begins the process anew or sustains the original feedback loop.  To me all life rests upon dipping our selves and connecting our selves into or within this elemental energy source as it forms an essential basis of individual & collective life, human or otherwise and our consciousness.

This feels like bumbling and stumbling or more appropriately groping my way in the dark as I, like CD have not read into or studied these concepts in any serous formal, informal, structured or autodidactic way so I am simply reflecting back what has been encountered and/or experienced along the road. 

My reference in passing: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.3.ii.html

Thoughts?

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 16:21 | 409829 juangrande
juangrande's picture

You guys are waaay more learned than I, but I agree with what I could grock. As far as that last paragraph about bumbling and mumbling, I see that sort of expression as personalizing "universal truth". It's in all of us waiting to be expressed, just more or less eloquently.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 21:36 | 410017 brodix
brodix's picture

It is very much a function of that electrical polarity Miles relates it with. It doesn't have to be with other people either, but can just as well be with the entirety of any situation. Think of the tips of your fingers and how they are an extension of your sense of being. Now pick up some tool or utensil you are familiar with and sense how it is just a further extension of your hand. Now try feeling something you are not familiar with and sense the combination of positive and negative polarities as you familiarize yourself with it. Think in terms of how you relate to other people and how you are drawn to those you instinctively trust, in fact this attraction is the trust, as well as repelled by those you are not sure about, unfamiliar with, or really do not trust. Not to mention the infinite combinations of attraction and repulsion. Remember though, that those who are most successful at deceiving others are masters at manipulating this process. So always be willing to step back from your emotions and be sure where they are coming from. The great flaw in monotheism is that the source is the essence from which we rise, not an ideal from which we fell. Good and bad are not some metaphysical dual between the forces of light and darkness, but this basic binary dichotomy of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental.

 

Sun, 06/13/2010 - 08:29 | 410419 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

"Remember though, that those who are most successful at deceiving others are masters at manipulating this process."

b-i-n-g-o, we're getting warmer

Sun, 06/13/2010 - 11:09 | 410481 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Tip - The thing is that those who manipulate and stipulate rather than congregate are easily discernible to those that do.  Deceit only works when we subsist under the sufferance of our own self imposed deceit.  Just as a recovering addict can spot an addict or an wife abuser (or the abused) can spot another of their kind at first glance the same applies here.  Once the foundation and ruthless application of truthfulness is self applied lies and all of the associated crap become easily discernible.

Sociopaths subsist off the free energy of others being the personification of a parasite (see up a few comments for my reference).  Deny this free source of energy and the sociopath withers and dies.  This also applies to those who have assimilated the parasite and believe they can no longer live without it.  Hence the call contained within CD's article to throw off this self imposed sufferance and subservience to the parasitic nature of the Ponzi.  It really is that simple Tip.

Sun, 06/13/2010 - 13:54 | 410619 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

absolutely miles...thing is though is that everyone is at different stages.  maybe it's helpful to sketch them out briefly in summary?

#1 : recognizing that the body has a parasite feeding off of it robbing it of energy.  obstacles: the sophisticated mechanisms aura referred to above preventing recognition.

#2 : determining that the parasite is harmful to the body, rather than symbiotic.  obstacles: this is what brodix talks about (also continuation of aura's point).

#3 : finding the will to cleanse the parasite from the body despite the obvious consequences.  obstacles: crabcake has hammered this point home quite well below & earlier.

#4 : the cleanse itself.  obstacles: a lonely, painful road with numerous signposts, with many of them simply substituting one harmful parasite for another (which way do i go?).

#5 : keeping the clean body immune from harmful parasites.  what you wrote about here.  although much easier to say you are going to do it, then actually being successful in practice yes?   a collective (however loose) for interdependent support is essential in this stage.  'probiotics' also may prove to be quite helpful.

(note: the word 'body' is used as a loose metaphor, both in the individual & collective sense)

Sun, 06/13/2010 - 12:21 | 410558 brodix
brodix's picture

Miles,

 There are endless permutations of these relationships. The line between parasitic and symbiotic relationships is extremely relative and only completely clear in the extremes. Any growing organism has to consume more energy than it expends. The problem is how to structure an economic model which sustains the environment and stabilizes the economy, rather than draw as much value and resources out as fast as possible, which is what this debt based system does.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 17:55 | 409861 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Thanks for your illumination and for recognition of the potential of achieving both narrow & broad based sympatico.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 17:49 | 408989 seventree
seventree's picture

This might seem off topic but maybe not so much: I have often wondered why pain hurts so much. I know that sounds silly but it's a serious question.

The obvious answer is we, and other creatures, evolved this highly unpleasant mental response to bodily injury that we perceive as pain as a warning that the body is damaged and under threat. It must speak to the brain with urgency that requires us to attend to the cause, for example by removing one's hand from a hot stove. In this way, pain is a survival mechanism. But why must this message be experienced as pain in the way that we know it? Couldn't some other kind of persistent mental signal serve the same purpose? In your case your flesh and bone were telling your conciousness that a serious problem needed to be dealt with. But there was actually no pain in your leg, only in your mind. There is a point where you want to say OK I got the damn message! But the pain persists, even increases, to no further purpose. At some point extreme pain can actually work against survival if the distraction compromises our capacity for fight or flight

Which leads to another question -- do other creatures, like us but lacking self-awareness, experience pain in the same way? Obvously they do experience it, very strongly in proportion to the injury; this can be observed in their behavior. But do we humans add another dimension to pain through our concious awareness that our own precious and unique self is being subjected this pain, this insult? If so, then the experience you describe could be a process of de-intellectualizing pain, observing its animal reality, but neutralizing the intellectual dimension by not taking personal offense.

Just a few random thoughts, some of which have been kicking around in my mind for a long time.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 22:55 | 409335 juangrande
juangrande's picture

As Shinzen Young explained for me, pain is pain. pain with resistance to the pain is suffering. learn to "stay" with pain without judgement and you will make a quantam leap in consciousness. the avoidance of pain is the essence of denial.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 12:17 | 409677 merehuman
merehuman's picture

I wonder if its the same Shinzen Young i met as a young man in LA @ the International Buddhist Meditation Center. At the time he was in the forefront of research into registering brain waves before and during meditation.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 16:07 | 409822 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Quite likely it was him. He resides/resided in LA. If you have a chance get access to "the science of enlightenment". long but worthy set of lectures w/ excellent basic guided meditations.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 00:59 | 409395 seventree
seventree's picture

Thank you, juangrande, for hearing what I was trying to say. Not that pain can be overcome by force of will, but that as human beings we can choose to receive it as a natural signal, or to multiply our suffering by entangling this signal with "higher" mental constructs like anger, resentment, denial. Or as you put it, Stay with the pain without judgement.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 13:45 | 409748 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

stay with the pain don't shut this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuiKJ0rRTAo

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 16:13 | 409826 juangrande
juangrande's picture

I love that part with the acid on his hand. actually Chuck Palahniuk has written several interesting novels centered around some of the themes we're discussing. He has definitely done some inner space exploration.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 01:13 | 409412 juangrande
juangrande's picture

seventree, stay with the pain and observe carefully. the things that are revealed in it's transformation are often astounding. many meditators wish only to find bliss and consequently avoid what is. often what resides in the "cellar" chakra-wise are the obstacles to liberation. "the deeper the roots the higher the reach".

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 18:53 | 409086 Azrael09
Azrael09's picture

seventree,

Another anecdote, in my practice as a movement educator, human pain is exceedingly subjective. Most pain does exist in the "mind", despite the experience of pain at certain points in the body. In many cases, where the pain "is", the problem "ain't". This is in regards to referral symptoms based in the nervous system. And sometimes, the pain is a residual effect and no longer really exists except in the mind.

I often ask clients to "define their pain" versus simply succumb to it. They often cannot do this. Many times, their fear of pain keeps them immobile, even past the previous injuries. A good resource on trauma and pain can be found in Dr. Robert Scaer's work with whiplash victim.

Personally, and from only my limited viewpoint, we have the capacity to keep judgment away from the pain. If we think it's going to hurt, it likely will. If we're afraid it will, same goes. I often suggest to others who ask to go fully into their pain and see what they experience. Simply observe. Animals move regardless of their condition if they can; their intentions remain in spite of their injuries. I want to say they simply don't give pain the power we do, but I cannot know their minds.

Just my 2p...

Mon, 06/14/2010 - 02:35 | 411988 thomas_anderson
thomas_anderson's picture

Azrael09, I know exactly of what you speak in regards to defining pain.  As a child (9 or 10 years old) I was able to actually undergo various types of pain and completely immerse myself in the sensation, and then understand that what I thought was "pain" didn't even really hurt if I thought about it and took time to deconstruct the sensations and experience them in small pieces.  Since then, everything hurts a lot less than it used to, if at all.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 18:35 | 409062 Marla And Me
Marla And Me's picture

Completely annectodal, but telling nonetheless.  When I was a child, I lived in a rural area.  We allowed our cats to roam freely, and they always came home.  One day, we found one of our female cats wailing at the front door.  From her vocalizations, we could tell she was clearly in considerable pain.  We brought her to to vet, and it turned out that her pelvis was completely broken.  The vet postulated that she was either run over by a car or by farm machinery in the corn fields.  She was completely baffled as to how the cat made it back to our house.  Thing is, she did.  And once she made it to the front door, she never walked or rose on her legs again until we had to put her down.  The mind is an extraordinary weapon.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 03:40 | 409470 Escapeclaws
Escapeclaws's picture

A beautiful anecdote, Marla and Me. I had a cat who was taken by my spouse during the divorce. The cat kept coming back to me about six times, which involved crossing dangerous four lane roads and finding her way across town. I was dumbfounded! She had to have been run over when she made her seventh attempt. Animals are capable of great love and have a wisdom we know not of. To mistreat an animal is the depths of ignorance.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 17:05 | 408925 Crab Cake
Crab Cake's picture

Nothing against Paul Levy, or Carl Jung... BUT

If you’d like to explore more on the subject of the dream like nature of reality and how we manifest our reality, then I urge you to spend some time with Buddhist philosiphy and spirtual mechanics.  Buddhism is sometimes referred to as a religion, and some people treat it that way, but Buddhism is in truth nothing less than a spirtual science that fearlessly approaches reality as it is. 

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 17:46 | 408988 Gully Foyle
Gully Foyle's picture

Crab Cake

Buddhism is codified Psychology.  Follow the rules and you can do no wrong.


1. Life means suffering.

2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

4. The path to the cessation of suffering.

Eightfold path

1. Right View

2. Right Intention

3. Right Speech

4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

6. Right Effort

7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Concentration

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 15:18 | 409804 Implicit simplicit
Implicit simplicit's picture

Being peace. It may not be religion but Amen 2 u

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 22:47 | 409327 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Gully,Gully,Gully, you da bomb!

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 23:08 | 409345 Gully Foyle
Gully Foyle's picture

juangrande 

Ever read any Paul Brunton? I have three of his notebooks, very interesting.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 11:11 | 409638 Wynn
Wynn's picture

Hmmm, you don't see Paul Brunton's name brought up very often.

Gully, are you familiar with Richard Rose? (West Virginia guru, almost sounds like an oxymoron, eh?)

 

Interesting thread. I have often wondered of my fascination with ZH, I have very little interest in materialism, yet I am drawn to this site as if a moth to flame. The Observer in my mind watches this great unraveling with no emotion, yet my physical body is just a wee bit scared.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!