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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 - 17:54 | 408957 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

the power of play is severely underrated for sure.  when you live in a world where TPTB are acting like spoiled rotten children anyhow, seriously what'd'ya got to lose?

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 16:22 | 408827 doomandbloom
doomandbloom's picture

this is brilliant CD!

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 16:04 | 408779 Paigow
Paigow's picture

Excellent post.

Individually we need to call their bluff

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 13:22 | 409732 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

yup, collectively individually and individually collectively

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:56 | 408761 Comrade de Chaos
Comrade de Chaos's picture

a bit too many conclusions, otherwise it's a reasonable essay.

 

unrelated

at any rate, all the data I need for my near term future economic expectations (especially on unemployment numbers) was published today (below is from WSJ):

"

U.S. companies are holding more cash in the bank than at any point on record, underscoring persistent worries about financial markets and about the sustainability of the economic recovery.

The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that nonfinancial companies had socked away $1.84 trillion in cash and other liquid assets as of the end of March, up 26% from a year earlier and the largest-ever increase in records going back to 1952. Cash made up about 7% of all company assets, including factories and financial investments, the highest level since 1963."

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:37 | 408740 merehuman
merehuman's picture

Hi CD.  So that shot in the leg was really a shot in the arm for your spiritual development. My first wake up call was also do to injury.

That was the first time i realized "I" was not the body i was with.

21 years old then .  Since we will eventually all leave our bodies we ought to try leaving it before  we have no choice. That process will lead to the discovery that 'we are' where our "attention" is.

Thanks for the lenghty offering. Its appreciated .

You are evidently a much more mental person than i am, our flows differ.

This is not an easy subject matter to tackle.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:32 | 408731 song
song's picture

Do you think of human potential as a quantum power?

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:48 | 408756 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

I think of human consciousness as a quantum power. Or possibly "the" quantum power. So if the human potential is the eventual realization and/or physical expression and manifestation of our consciousness, then yes. 

I suspect when the scientists get to the end of the capability of their machines, they will find our/their consciousness gazing back, asking them what took them so long. At that point, the circle/cycle will be complete.

Tue, 11/02/2010 - 02:40 | 692562 Unlawful Justice
Unlawful Justice's picture

Quantum Reality is what you have Cog.  We create our reality and live in a quantum universe.   The dream world is the quantum world and has become more real than this so call "real world".   A movie call "What the bleep do we know" can add to the knowledge base that CD has given us.   This is an excellent essay from COG-DIS.  A tip of the hat to you!

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 01:59 | 409430 Mactheknife
Mactheknife's picture

Cog man, me thinks you think too much. LOL. The gist of your whole dissertation sounds a lot like what has been called "The Law of Attraction". The nature of the universe consists of only that which is wanted and the lack thereof. Quite simply, "That which is like unto itself is drawn". When you look at something and shout NO at it, what you are really saying is "Come to me, this thing that which I do not want". In this country we have waged many wars. The war on drugs, teen pregnancy, terrorism, etc, etc, and all we get are more drugs, pregnant teens, and terrorists. We have to learn to focus on that which we DO want. Do you know what you want?

I know what I want. I want the brilliance of Jefferson back. I want our Constitution back. I am STRUCK DUMB by the fact that 234 years ago (before there were cars, planes, trains, phones, or even oil) this man had the insight to realize this-

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

 

Thomas Jefferson

 

 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 10:29 | 409613 juangrande
juangrande's picture

"that which is like unto itself is drawn"   "come to me, this thing that which I do not want" Often these come in the form of the proverbial cosmic 2 by 4 across the head. Like the story of the guy on the roof during the flood asking for god's assistance. 1st what you need appears gently and easily. Upon rejection, it reappears a little more intense and so on, until finally wham! 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 02:32 | 409445 Escapeclaws
Escapeclaws's picture

Evidently money was power back in Jefferson's time as well. In that respect, Jefferson was only stating the obvious. Maybe we are mistaken to think things change all that much in the human domain, although we are in a golden age in terms of science.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 03:14 | 409461 Mactheknife
Mactheknife's picture

>Evidently money was power back in Jefferson's time as well.

No doubt.

>In that respect, Jefferson was only stating the obvious.

Ahh, but at least he had the foresight to know that sooner or later some idiot like Woodrow Wilson would come along and turn that power over to an asshole like JP Morgan.

>Maybe we are mistaken to think things change all that much in the human domain

A great truth. THINGS on this planet are just as they were the day they got here. The only thing that has changed is man's ability to use them.

Cheers!

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 16:43 | 408885 Gully Foyle
Gully Foyle's picture


The Eight Circuits

Note: The names for the circuits used by Dr. Timothy Leary [1] [2] [3] are shown first and the names for the circuits used by Robert Anton Wilson are shown in parentheses [4](they both used the same names for the first, second, and fifth circuits). After the name of the circuit, the name that was used by Dr. Timothy Leary to describe the level of consciousness that is activated by that circuit is shown in parentheses [5].

[edit]1. The Biosurvival Circuit (The Breath of Consciousness)

Imprinted in infancy, concerned with suckling, nourishment, cuddling, bio-security etc. The imprinting of this circuit sets up the basic attitude of trust or suspicion which will last for life. First activated when a human being is born, and programs perception onto an either-or grid, divided into nurturing-helpful and noxious-dangerous (approach/accept vs. flight/flee). Leary thinks that this circuit is stimulated in adults by opioid drugs. This circuit is said to have appeared in the earliest evolution of invertebrate brain. This circuit begins with 1 spatial dimension, forward/back.

[edit]2. The Emotional-Territorial Circuit (Freud's Ego)

Imprinted in the toddling stage, concerned with emotions, domination and submission strategies, territory etc. The first imprint on this circuit identifies the stimuli which will automatically trigger dominant, aggressive behavior or submissive, co-operative behavior. This circuit is activated with abundant quantities of alcohol. This circuit appeared first in territorial vertebrate animals. This circuit introduces a 2nd dimension; up/down.

[edit]3. The Symbolic (Neuro-Semantic-Dexterity) Circuit (The Rational-Empirical Mind)

Imprinted by human artifacts and symbol systems. Concerned with handling the environment, invention, calculation, prediction, building a “map” of the universe etc. It is associated with physical dexterity and Caffeinespeedcocaine and a high-protein diet activate this circuit. This circuit supposedly appeared first when hominids started differentiating from the rest of the primates.

 

[edit]4. The Domestic (Socio-Sexual) Circuit (The "Adult" Personality)

Imprinted by the first orgasm-mating experiences and tribal “morals”. Concerned with sexual pleasure, (instead of sexual reproduction) local definitions of “moral” and “immoral”, reproduction, nurture of the young etc. This circuit is basically concerned with operating within social networks and the transmission of culture across time. This circuit is said to have first appeared with the development of tribes.

 

[edit]5. The Neurosomatic Circuit (Zen-Yoga Mind-Body-Connexion)

Concerned with neurological-somatic feedbacks, feeling high, somatic reprogramming etc. The fifth circuit, according to Leary, is consciousness of the body. There is a marked shift from linear visual space to an all-encompassing aesthetic sensory space. A hedonic turn-on occurs, a rapturous amusement, a detachment from the previously compulsive mechanism of the first four circuits. This circuit is stimulated by ecstatic experiences via physiological effects of marijuana and MDMAyogatantra (Leary's name for tantra was hedonic engineering), Zen meditation and free fall. Leary describes that this circuit first appeared in the upper classes with the development of leisure-class civilizations around 2000 BC.

[edit]6. The Neuroelectric (Metaprogramming) Circuit (Psionic Electronic-Interface Mind)

Concerned with re-imprinting and re-programming all earlier circuits, relativity of “realities” perceived, cybernetic consciousness, so-called PSI/magical powers, etc. The sixth circuit consists of the nervous system becoming aware of itself. Leary says this circuit enables telepathic communication and associates it with peyotepsilocybinMDA and yage, as well as being associated withcomputer games. This circuit is traced by Leary back to 500 BC and he associates it with the Silk Road.

[edit]7. The Neurogenetic (Morphogenetic) Circuit (Buddha-Monad 'Mind')

Concerned with evolutionary consciousness (past and future), DNA-RNA-brain feedbacks (ancestral, societal and scientific), Jung’s “Collective unconscious” etc. The first to achieve this mutation spoke of “memories of past lives”, “reincarnation”, “immortality” etc. This circuit is stimulated by sacred mushroomsRaja Yoga etc. The circuit first appeared among the Hindus in the early first millennium and later reappeared among the Sufi sects.

[edit]8. The Psychoatomic (Quantum Non-Local) Circuit (Overmind)

Concerned with quantum consciousnessnon-local awareness (information from beyond ordinary space-time awareness which is limited by the speed of light), illumination, out-of-body experiences,astral projection, contact with alien entities (which does not necessarily specifically refer to only materially based creatures from outer space, but rather all beings, including e.g. angels) or with agalactic Overmind etc. Some of the ways this circuit can get activated are the awakening of kundalini, shock, near-death experience etc. This circuit has even been compared to the Buddhistconcept of Indra's net from the Avatamsaka Sutra. Leary associated large doses of LSD (1,000 mcg) and DMT with this circuit.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-Circuit_Model_of_Consciousness

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 01:28 | 409394 G-R-U-N-T
G-R-U-N-T's picture

"The Psychedelic Experience" by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Albert. all three Ph.D's at Harvard is probably the best instruction manual on dieing consciously.

To reach primary clear light as seen at the moment of ego-Loss, or what some call illumination is the goal of the text.

One can only hang onto it for seconds, if that, because of the intensity.

 

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:24 | 408696 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

You've hit the very essence of our problem CD. Maybe because we all rely on our own experience to makes sense out of this nonsense but this site  makes me constantly think about the domestic violence abuse cycle

  http://www.mchenrycountyturningpoint.org/images/cycleofviolence4.gif

Twenty years ago, when I started prosecuting this stuff, I joked that this chart could also explain any employment and economic relationship as well. Little did I know I would be living the joke two decades later. We are all living this joke but you're right CD, the joke is not only on us, it is us, it is our perception. Apathy, blame shifting, fear and the illusion of impotence (Geitner excluded) are the building blocks of this collective inaction. You also make an incredibly important point which makes this collective abuse a whole different ball game. This isn't just one abused household and there are a ten thousand Nicoles for every OJ. The minute we all understand this key, is the minute things begin to change. As you know, those who live it, or more important, live through it, are ten times more prepared than any lawyer who argues about it after the fact.

Thanks   

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:12 | 408694 xenophobe51
xenophobe51's picture

Damn this is a good series. It makes my angst hurt.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 04:57 | 409494 merehuman
merehuman's picture

Balance

I am the keeper of the scales

the juggler of my fate

destined to watch my tears

even as i smile

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:12 | 408693 Gully Foyle
Gully Foyle's picture

When I was back there in seminary school 
There was a person there 
Who put forth the proposition 
That you can petition the Lord with prayer 
Petition the lord with prayer 
Petition the lord with prayer 
You cannot petition the lord with prayer! 

Can you give me sanctuary 
I must find a place to hide 
A place for me to hide
Can you find me soft asylum 
I can't make it anymore 
The Man is at the door 

Peppermint, miniskirts, chocolate candy 
Champion sax and a girl named Sandy 
There's only four ways to get unraveled 
One is to sleep and the other is travel, da da 
One is a bandit up in the hills 
One is to love your neighbor 'till 
His wife gets home 

Catacombs 
Nursery bones 
Winter women 
Growing stones 
Carrying babies 
To the river 

Streets and shoes 
Avenues 
Leather riders 
Selling news 
The monk bought lunch 

Ha ha, he bought a little 
Yes, he did 
Woo! 
This is the best part of the trip 
This is the trip, the best part 
I really like 
What'd he say? 
Yeah! 
Yeah, right! 
Pretty good, huh 
Huh! 
Yeah, I'm proud to be a part of this number 

Successful hills are here to stay 
Everything must be this way 
Gentle streets where people play 
Welcome to the Soft Parade 

All our lives we sweat and save 
Building for a shallow grave 
Must be something else we say 
Somehow to defend this place 
Everything must be this way 
Everything must be this way, yeah 

The Soft Parade has now begun 
Listen to the engines hum 
People out to have some fun 
A cobra on my left 
Leopard on my right, yeah 

The deer woman in a silk dress 
Girls with beads around their necks 
Kiss the hunter of the green vest 
Who has wrestled before 
With lions in the night 

Out of sight! 
The lights are getting brighter 
The radio is moaning 
Calling to the dogs 
There are still a few animals 
Left out in the yard 
But it's getting harder 
To describe sailors 
To the underfed 

Tropic corridor 
Tropic treasure 
What got us this far 
To this mild equator? 

We need someone or something new 
Something else to get us through, yeah, c'mon 

Callin' on the dogs 
Callin' on the dogs 
Oh, it's gettin' harder 
Callin' on the dogs 
Callin' in the dogs 
Callin' all the dogs 
Callin' on the gods 

You gotta meet me 
Too late, baby 
Slay a few animals 
At the crossroads 
Too late 
All in the yard 
But it's gettin' harder 
By the crossroads 
You gotta meet me 
Oh, we're goin', we're goin great 
At the edge of town 
Tropic corridor 
Tropic treasure 
Havin' a good time 
Got to come along 
What got us this far 
To this mild equator? 
Outskirts of the city 
You and I 
We need someone new 
Somethin' new 
Somethin' else to get us through 
Better bring your gun 
Better bring your gun 
Tropic corridor 
Tropic treasure 
We're gonna ride and have some fun 

When all else fails 
We can whip the horse's eyes 
And make them sleep 
And cry 

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:11 | 408690 Gully Foyle
Gully Foyle's picture


The Most Valuable Thing in the World

Sozan, a Chinese Zen master, was asked by a student: "What is the most valuable thing in the world?"

The master replied: "The head of a dead cat."

"Why is the head of a dead cat the most valuable thing in the world?" inquired the student.

Sozan replied: "Because no one can name its price."

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 06:56 | 409530 unbeing
unbeing's picture

A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. "Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. Then he asked: "What's that you are sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar. "Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember." "Ever looked inside?" asked the stranger. "No," said the beggar. "What's the point? There's nothing in there." "Have a look inside," insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 17:45 | 408952 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

ha!  +1 hand clapping for gully

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 14:58 | 408647 tip e. canoe
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"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." voila...brilliant sir though i'm curious as how you would define 'physical control'. is it synonymous with what others (Gurdjieff, et al) would call 'energetic control'?

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:30 | 408721 Cognitive Dissonance
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I'm at a terrible disadvantage when people in the comment section ask me if my view corresponds to this or that person/thinker/philosopher because I've spent little to no time reading them. This is the first time I've seen the name Gurdjieff.

While I would never claim that I have created an "original" thought, because it's clear other more studied and aware people have thoroughly covered this ground before me, most of my views were/have developed from deep personal reflection and self examination. It's only now that I'm voicing them that I'm beginning to truly appreciate not only the ground that's already been covered by others but how much more is out there that I never even considered.

The other problem I have is with terminology. All my writings are based upon my interpretation of what I've found. It's only now that I'm finding terms that exist that are much more descriptive than my long sentences. One could say I'm writing from the layman's perspective because that would describe me to a tee.

What is the definition of "energetic control" in your view? 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 06:55 | 409525 unbeing
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CD, makes perfect sense to me and thankyou.  I've read widely on these matters, but the thing that really comes out is this: accept authority from no-one and no-thing, especially the words of gurus and academics.  One must find out for oneself, and seems to me you're doing very well on your own :-)

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 17:44 | 408946 tip e. canoe
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cogdis, didn't mean to catch you off your guard...please excuse the assumption (ass-u-me).  and agreed that terminology opens a can of worms of perceptions.  not trying to pick an intellectual swordfight here, only seeking clarity in subtlety.  will be careful to tread gently...

the link between emotional control & where that leads next is a keystone in the chains that bind methinks.  Gurdjieff spoke about that frequently, in case you're interested, here's another to add to the stack : 'in search of the miraculous' (not only for what G taught, but the lessons learned from the POV of the student Ousspensky, and what we learn about the teacher/student dynamic from reading in the 3rd person.)  here's a taste:

«A man alone can do nothing. [...] You are in prison. All that you desire, if you are intelligent, is escape. But how to escape? It is necessary to dig a tunnel under the wall, but a man alone can do nothing; let's suppose however that there are ten or twenty men: if they work in turns and cover for each other, they can complete the tunnel and escape».

as to your question, i asked you 1st ;~)   curious to hear your views colored only by your experience.  will be happy to respond in kind.

 

 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 10:53 | 409629 Cognitive Dissonance
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"cogdis, didn't mean to catch you off your guard..."

You didn't catch me off guard. But many people assume or think I developed my ideas after reading the greats in this field. I did not, thus I'm mostly ignorant of what they have to say. In the past when I've answered people's questions, I felt at a disadvantage because I wasn't familiar with the material they were referring to. Just wanted to make sure we were both on the same page.

"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." voila...brilliant sir though I'm curious as how you would define 'physical control'."

I was not thinking in terms of actual physical control as in physical restraint or force, at least not at first. There is actually no need for that in most cases, again at least at first. When the mind has been captured, the body quickly follows. I was talking about some one's willingness to physically do as others wish once they have been captured mentally. The way is often greased with decison points or forks in the road that allow the person the comfort of thinking they are making a choice when the choice is an illusion. This is America today.

The Nazi's were terribly efficient at this when working towards their desire to exterminate entire races of people. They always gave the people choices, thou the answers were preordained. Do you wish to wear the star of David or do you want to have your assets seized. Do you wish to move to the ghetto or do we put you out on the street. Do you want to get on this cattle car or do you want to be separated from your family. Do you want to shower or wallow in this muddy filth.

Always the choices were reasonable enough for the person to engage in self deception, the softer easier path always evident. It also allowed the Nazi's to use as little as 5 guards for each 200 prisoners. They also used clever herding techniques to narrow physical choices. I learned a lot studying that period of world insanity. And it also wounded my soul in terrible ways. This is where we're headed if we do nothing. 

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 13:17 | 409725 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

ah yes, the architecture of control...the NYPD are masters at this with their sheep herder lego sets that they seem to have on the ready on a moment's notice whenever the flock gets a little too unruly (and if you observe enough of these, you can feel the moment right when that is about to happen).

always reducing the situation into a binary choice : conform or rebel, conform or rebel, conform or rebel (with always the fear of consequences heavily titled on only one side of the scale).

but when we find ourselves herded into that situation, are those the only 2 choices we have, or is their a 3rd choice, a line of flight with infinite variations only constrained by the limits of the imagination?  the video you shared with the guy dancing in the park continues to resonate when musing on this question. 

on a tangent, that story about your friend in the local commissioner meeting...do you think that was an act of rebellion he displayed or something different?  is standing your ground in front of a tank in tinanamen square without being physically threatening, is that an act of rebellion or is it something even more subtle?  even if they appeared to some to be rebellious (as they choose to conform to the prevailing view of how 'rebellion' is defined), weren't those individuals actually conforming to the rules of proper social conduct and simply calling attention that those who possessed the 'power' were not?

in other words, both those individuals could have chosen the destructive path and start shouting out the joint (like we saw last summer in the town halls) or start throwing rocks at the tank, but they didn't.  yet those 2 very different paths are both considered under the subset of 'rebellious' along with those more destructive actions (like ramming an airplane into a govt. building for example).  the act of questioning the power structure has become synonomous with terrorism in the memespace, but when encountered in reality, does it not have a far far different effect?  

if so, the challenge seems to be to find the rightful means to minimize the risk of the consequences in order to encourage as many others to see that there are certain types of "rebellion" that aren't really rebellion and not destructive to the social fabric, but constructive.  is the goal at this moment in time to again be revolutionary (bouncing back and forth between the 2 poles but remaining in the cage) or evolutionary (to crawl outside the cage for a moment to see it from the spider's eye view, then return to the cage and act with that spider center)?

(hope i'm clear here, trying to make a concrete practical inquiry, rather than an abstract philosophical one, but finding it rather difficult as usual)

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:55 | 408764 Lets Hang Parliament
Lets Hang Parliament's picture

"self remembering" is the term Gurdjieff used a lot. It's like mindfullness meditation but concentrating on the whole body not just the breath and "self remembering" but doing it all the time and not just while meditating; or meditating 24/7 if you like.

CD you are well down the road which is a lot more than most and what you have written will resonate with some of your readers. Never worry (what an awful word) that some folk wont understand just remember that when the student is ready the teacher will arrive. Most people think that is just crazy but what a fantastic wake up call when you realise it is so.

Meanwhile in the assylum called Goldman Sachs...

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 04:48 | 409491 merehuman
merehuman's picture

Hey Lets hang, been doin that.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 20:36 | 409212 ToddGak
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Another great Gurdjieff/Ouspensky book is "A New Model of the Universe" - some of the most amazing concepts I've ever come across.  Nothing magical or otherwordly per se, just sort of connecting the dots between the various levels of reality...one example, the law of three and the law of seven...you see the law of seven in musical pitches (scales of seven which repeat) and hues of light (the rainbow divided into seven hues, often called roygbiv - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).  One of my favorite reads of all time.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 17:56 | 409003 tip e. canoe
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"or meditating 24/7 if you like."  krishnamurti was very particular about that as well.  what i personally particularly like about these 2 cats over the countless other gurus is that they were making constant attempts to shatter the need for an external personified guru altogether, especially when they achieved 'superguru' status from their disciples.

"if you see a Buddha on the road, kill the bitch."

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 22:23 | 409304 juangrande
juangrande's picture

beyond "shatter the need for a guru" J Krishnamurti was trying to impart that want and need are the antithesis of detachment. basically he meant ( I think ) that to search for enlightenment is exactly the problem. truth already resides in everything. truth is everything. everything is perfect. to try to " achieve" realization is a losing battle. the key is to get out of one's own way. often the new age game is framed as "self enhancement" when "self dissolvement" would be more effective. but I do agree with the previous threads, just expounding a little.

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 07:05 | 409533 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

well said juanG.  thanks for distilling the essence even more.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 16:37 | 408872 Gully Foyle
Gully Foyle's picture

Lets Hang Parliament

 " Be here now".


Fri, 06/11/2010 - 21:32 | 409259 juangrande
juangrande's picture

Parliament. You mean the P-Funk?

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 23:32 | 409362 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

It's Funkadellic

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 16:21 | 408818 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

just remember that when the student is ready the teacher will arrive.

Marvelously true.

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 15:55 | 408763 Matto
Matto's picture

Nietzsche - fear comes from lack of control and ultimate control is control of oneself hence control of oneself is a journey towards the elimination of fear.

 

to paraphrase one quote

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 17:29 | 409863 Implicit simplicit
Implicit simplicit's picture

The "cognitive imperitive" - to know thyself

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 21:30 | 409256 juangrande
juangrande's picture

"need to control" comes from fear. ultimate control is a fantasy which is the game that ego manifests in order to perpetuate it's control. talk about a self enforcing/deluding loop!

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 04:45 | 409489 merehuman
merehuman's picture

therefore my mantra  has been "fuck it". Given to me years ago by a somewhat enlightened being . I thank him for it. i dont hold onto nothing. Its all a trade off. Prestige, good looks , appearance dont mean a thing. Attitude, awareness and being here and now  is everithing.

While married, the wife and i drove truh a town and we had harmony in the cab until she pointed out a well breasted lass and asked had i seen her. It quickly devolved into another tirade and shattered the peace. Mind i dont expect all to be good all the time but i had reached my limit  of consternation and pulled the truck over. Getting out i said good bye to her and i would write later to resolve property issues, she could run the business and keep the truck and house. Took a minute to say and walked into the unknown wearing only the clothes on my back, hardly any cash and it did not matter what the future held. Some may say its insane, but i have started over many times and ate at quite a few Sally's. (salvation army).

What is of importance to me is not tommorrow, but now. Living as a man i must deal with the issues of the future, so i have prepared, but mostly so it would not be on my mind constantly. Worry keeps me in my head and i like better to be centered in my heart center.

I prefer relating from experience as so many books lie and we should all arrive at the truth ourselves via experience and experimentation. You got to prove it to yourself.  Good night all

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 14:48 | 408629 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.  Thanks CD !

Fri, 06/11/2010 - 14:46 | 408624 Miss America
Miss America's picture

You are rapidly approaching 100 pages.  You should've gotten $22.95 for the hardcover version!

I look forward to hitting it tonight.

 

All the best,

Miss America - Rich Hartmann

 

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