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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 60
PETER to No 37:
RESPONDENT: Perhaps they ‘manage to deny’ it because they actually DON’T believe in such things? PETER: In my case I don’t have any spiritual beliefs left due to my own intent to expose my spiritual beliefs but I do acknowledge that ‘I’ am a spirit-like being and will remain so until ‘self’-immolation occurs. Unless I am having a PCE, ‘I’ experience myself as being inside this body, looking out at the outside world through the body’s eyes, hearing through the ears, smelling smells through the nose and so on. There is no question of my not believing ‘I’ am a spirit being – sincere observation reveals that ‘I’ am a non-material entity. RESPONDENT: Yes, I can understand that you did this, and I can understand why. Given your background when you first became interested in actualism it makes sense. The problem, as I see it, is that the feeling of ‘being’ does not always go hand-in-hand with spiritual beliefs (as in belief in a separate spirit, or an immortal spirit, or a belief in a divinity, etc). PETER: Perhaps you could provide an example where ‘the feeling of being does not always go hand-in hand with spiritual belief’ as I cannot think of a single example. The reason I ask is that I remember being quite shocked, after having spending years on the spiritual path, at how little I understood about spiritualism and what really lies at the core of all spiritual belief. Nowadays I see that very few people understand spiritualism because belief inevitably blinds one to the facts. RESPONDENT: Of course you can. You yourself have a feeling of ‘being’, but you do not have any spiritual beliefs? You have said as much yourself – [Peter]: ‘I have a feeling of ‘being’, but I do not have spiritual beliefs’. [endquote]. PETER: Your comment that ‘the feeling of ‘being’ does not always go hand-in-hand with spiritual beliefs’ can mean that one can have spiritual beliefs without necessarily having the feeling of being or it can mean that one can have the feeling of being without necessarily having spiritual beliefs, i.e. the meaning differs depending on whether the comment is made in regard to spiritual beliefs or made in regard to the feeling of being. I read that you were making the comment in regard to spiritual beliefs because the subject we were talking about was believing, specifically believing in spirits. If you look at the remainder of my reply you will see that I stayed on the subject of belief because I went on to say I was shocked when I discovered how little I understood about spiritualism and what really lies at the core of all spiritual belief. Of course it is possible to have a feeling of being and not have spiritual beliefs – and I used myself as an example because I have spent a good deal of time and effort in deliberately bringing all of my spiritual beliefs out of the closet, taking a good look at them and investigating the facts of the matter. Thus far very, very few people on the planet have done this so the qualifier would be that thus far it is extremely rare that people have a feeling of being and do not have any spiritual beliefs whatsoever. And it is pertinent to point out that human beings don’t have a feeling of being – ‘who’ they are deep down at the very core is a feeling being. It is not that ‘I’ feel angry – ‘I’ am anger. It is not that ‘I’ feel sad – ‘I’ am sadness. It is not that ‘I’ feel bored – ‘I’ am boredom … and so on. Understanding this experientially, as in checking it out for yourself, avoids the habitual trap of dissociating one’s ‘self’ from one’s feelings. RESPONDENT: My ‘self’ is metaphysical but not supernatural. It is a projection of the flesh, an emanation of the flesh, not something separate that survives the death of the body. I think of the self in relation to the body as roughly analogous to the relationship between a movie and the tape it is stored on. Nothing supernatural about it. PETER: To think about the ‘self’ ‘analogous to the relationship between a movie and the tape it is stored on’ is but another version of the traditional dissociated way of thinking about the ‘self’ that is the hallmark of Eastern spirituality, a way that takes no account at all for the primary role that the instinctual passions play in both the formation, continuation and everyday operation of one’s ‘self’ or psyche. I remember it being very important to me in the early stages of actualism to clearly understand what Richard was saying so I could clearly understand why ‘I’ exist, how ‘I’ came to be and what ‘I’ am made of. What finally twigged me to intellectually understand why the ‘self’ or psyche exists was when I finally grasped the fact that the human psyche is the inevitable outcome of the combination of the human ability to think and the genetically-encoded instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. The next breakthrough in my intellectual understanding was coming to realize that the traditional seekers of freedom have always laid the blame for the ills of humankind on thinking and not on the genetically-encoded instinctual passions. I also saw that this is understandable as human beings are, after-all, feeling beings and that the instinctual passions were necessary to ensure the survival of the species in the dim and dark ancient times when all of the feared superstitions and revered teachings were passed on by word of mouth, chiselled in stone or penned on rice paper. I came to comprehend why and how the belief that thinking is the root cause of human suffering has led many a person to seek ‘freedom’ by abandoning common sense thinking and allowing their imagination and passions to run riot. This intellectual understanding accorded with my own experience on the spiritual path and, because of my own altered state of consciousness experiences and my up-close observation of many others who permanently lived in these altered states, I knew that the path of denial and transcendence can only lead to delusionary states. These insights in turn led me to unreservedly take on board the fact that all of the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to the instinctual passions and that it is the instinctual passions give rise ‘me’ as an instinctually feeling being – in other words, I came to understand that ‘I’ am not merely an illusionary or metaphysical being, I’ am a passionate being at core. The next step to take was obvious. If I wanted to become aware of ‘me’ and experientially understand how ‘I’ operate then I needed to start to pay attention to my feelings, emotions and passions when, and as, they happen – because ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. When I actually started to do this I discovered that I had, in fact, become an actualist. If you are interested, I suggest reading ‘The Introduction to Actual Freedom’ as it is perhaps the best and simplest explanation of this sequence of understanding that I have written as it puts the issue of ‘self’ within the overall context of the timely need to finally bring an end to human malevolence and despondency. * PETER: The reason I ask is that I remember being quite shocked, after having spending years on the spiritual path, at how little I understood about spiritualism and what really lies at the core of all spiritual belief. Nowadays I see that very few people understand spiritualism because belief inevitably blinds one to the facts. RESPONDENT: Do you see a specific spiritual belief in me that blinds me to the facts? PETER: For whatever reason, you appear to be playing your cards close to your chest. It’s up to you to lay your cards on the table if you want to. * RESPONDENT: You see, I too have the feeling of ‘being’, and yet I don’t believe that any part of me survives physical death. I am a mortal soul, if you like, a metaphysical projection of this body which ceases when the body ceases. PETER: I can relate to what you are saying because when I was on the spiritual path I followed a Guru who apparently didn’t teach life-after-death but taught the freedom to be had in the ‘other world’. I was shocked when he died as he had pre-arranged to have ‘Never born, never died, just visited this planet’ engraved on his tomb – in short, he was a charlatan and I had been gullible in that I only heard what I wanted to hear and cut out what I didn’t want to hear. RESPONDENT: Ok, well in my case, there is no ‘apparently’ about it. I do not believe in life after death, and I do not believe in other worlds. Why do you continually speak to me as if I do? Why do you not register what I say to you about myself? PETER: I was simply telling you a story about how gullible I had been in my spiritual days in believing what a spiritual teacher wanted me to hear – namely that he taught spirituality without any apparent reference to life-after death. The point I was making was that one doesn’t necessarily need to believe in a life after death in order to believe what spiritual teachers say. * PETER: I was shocked when he died as he had pre-arranged to have ‘Never born, never died, just visited this planet’ engraved on his tomb – in short, he was a charlatan and I had been gullible in that I only heard what I wanted to hear and cut out what I didn’t want to hear. I now understand that this predisposition is one of the major reasons why beliefs have such a stranglehold over human beings. RESPONDENT: Sure it is, but let’s get specific here. I claim that I have no such beliefs. You seem to be implying that it’s impossible or very unlikely that I should have no beliefs. If you think I DO have some kind of spiritual belief, lay it on me. I’m pretty tired of these non-specific attributions of spirituality. PETER: I did lay my cards on the table as to why I think you have some kind of spiritual belief … and yet you chose to make no response to it and you even went to the trouble of snipping it out from the returned post. (see below) * RESPONDENT: Several of my peers would be in the same position. They (naturally) feel themselves to be someone, but they do not have overtly spiritual beliefs, and would not recognise themselves as ‘spiritual’ people because their beliefs are based on a combination of science and 20th century psychology. PETER: Many of my peers, including those who were once full-on on the spiritual path, are now seemingly content with combining more-watered down spiritual beliefs with their normal materialistic pursuits, so much so that they would have no interest at all in abandoning their beliefs and becoming actually free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: These people would be both confused and annoyed, as I was, to defend themselves against the charge of ‘spiritualist’ or ‘mystic’ – because these words already have a different meaning to them. PETER: As this mailing list is the chosen forum for discussing actualism the hypothetical case that your friends would be confused and annoyed is a furphy. RESPONDENT: You’ve misunderstood me completely. I didn’t mean that my peers would be annoyed if they were accosted by actualists in the street. I meant that if they came here with an interest in learning about actualism, and found themselves being described as spiritualists, or found themselves having ‘spiritual beliefs’ attributed to them, they would be needlessly confused and annoyed (for reasons discussed ad nausea recently, reasons which are apparently still lost on you). PETER: Okay. If your friends did come here to this mailing list there is no doubt that they would be initially confused as what is on offer here is not only iconoclastic and radical, it is brand new in human history. Whether or not they would get annoyed or even choose to express their annoyance would obviously depend upon their intent. If they came with the intent to learn about actualism, they may well not get annoyed, if they came with the intent to tell actualists that they are wrong, then it is inevitable that they will get annoyed. * RESPONDENT: I do understand that you are determined to expose spirituality wherever you find it, and I do understand that it lurks in some of the most unexpected places (eg. in law, as you mentioned the other day). PETER: I am not at all determined to expose spirituality wherever I find it as you put it – I’ve done that business by myself, for myself ... RESPONDENT: Again, I didn’t mean out in the streets with strangers, I meant in your personal life and here in this actualism discussion group. (Why do you always attribute the most ridiculous possible meanings to my words, I wonder?) PETER: In what way am I attributing ‘the most ridiculous possible meanings’ to your words? I didn’t say anything about ‘out in the streets with strangers’; I simply said that I have exposed my spirituality myself, for myself – as in personally in my personal life. And not only that, I have written a good deal about why I chose to expose my own spiritual beliefs – and also outlined in detail the somewhat tumultuous process I went through in doing so – both in my journal and on this mailing list, thousands upon thousands of words in fact, all put out in the open for public scrutiny. * PETER: ... and am now immeasurably happier for being free of my spiritual beliefs. Whether other people want to do this themselves is their business. However, when people who have been interested in spiritualism come to this mailing list believing that actualism is yet another spiritual teaching to either blithely follow or senselessly rile against and then, when they come to realize that actualism is utterly non-spiritual, suddenly declare themselves to have no spiritual beliefs whatsoever I simply point out the spiritual beliefs that are evident in their writings to this mailing list. In the face of this simple pointing out of the facts of the matter the most common reactions are cognitive dissonance (an inability to take on board a fact that directly contradicts one’s beliefs), denial (a childhood-learned defensive reaction) or anger (an instinctual knee-jerk reaction). Over the course of time many correspondents have managed to pass through these somewhat inevitable reactions and have got to the stage where their interest in peace on earth means that they are able to lay their cards on the table, as it were, without the need to blame or the need to feel shame. There is no doubt that this is a tough business at the start – daring to abandon the status quo and having the gumption to devote your life to becoming happy and harmless is after all the most rebellious thing that one can do. RESPONDENT: Look, let’s cut the crap here. You are using the world ‘spiritual’ in a way that is guaranteed to cause confusion and unnecessary misunderstanding among people who have no belief in the supernatural (but who DO have a feeling of ‘being’). What prevents you from understanding this very simple issue? PETER: I have made it clear that a feeling of being is not synonymous with spiritual belief as I have said that ‘I have a feeling of ‘being’, but I do not have spiritual beliefs’ and this clearly indicates that they are not one in the same thing. What I have said about the supposed confusion and unnecessary misunderstandings is that it is a beat up. A speck of dust has been made into a mountain by those who have a vested interest in making something that is very simple appear to be complex – and not only that, those who are participating in the beat-up know, deep-down inside where their feelings lie, why they are doing it. * RESPONDENT: I do understand that I and all of my peers actually are spiritual (in the way you and Richard use the word) because we have the feeling of being someone. I do not have a problem with you exposing this as ruthlessly and persistently as you like; it is helpful (if uncomfortable at times). PETER: I am not ‘exposing’ anything in the sense that the word is normally used because this mailing list is not a therapy group. You have been on this mailing list long enough to know that you are completely free to write to either Richard, Vineeto or myself and that if you do so we are apt to point to the facts of the matter that are contrary to the beliefs and opinions you have garnered from a life-time of conditioning and that this pointing to the facts invariably causes feelings of confusion, annoyance and defensiveness. RESPONDENT: Peter, more often than not, in discussion with me at least, you have not been pointing out matters of fact that are contrary to beliefs and opinions of mine. More often, you have annoyed the crap out of me by misunderstanding and misinterpreting everything I write, and it hasn’t changed a bit. PETER: It does seem that nothing has changed at all. This is what you said to me on this mailing list 6 weeks ago –
and it is clear that you are still not interested in what we are discussing or even why we are discussing it but that your focus still remains in looking for the ‘shit’ you imagine we are full of. It is little wonder nothing has changed, you are apparently averse to changing. * PETER: I say invariably because a belief is an emotion-backed thought and beliefs are always associated with feelings and emotions. RESPONDENT: Which beliefs would be at stake here? PETER: If you read my journal you will find that it is somewhat sequential in that I did not aimlessly set out to expose my spiritual beliefs – the very first thing I did was set myself the task of being able to live with at least one other person in utter peace and harmony which meant that I firstly had to become harmless which in turn meant my happiness increased which in turn meant that I increasingly became good company to my companion. In the course of paying attention to the times when I was being annoyed or not feeling happy I very often discover that I was defending one of ‘my’ precious beliefs or else I was feeling antagonistic towards someone else because their belief did not accord with ‘my’ belief. In other words the only way I exposed my beliefs was by paying attention to whatever feeling I was having at the moment and tracing it back to a belief I held to be a truth. A simple do-it-yourself process, but, like anything new, it does take some doing at first. * PETER: I say invariably because a belief is an emotion-backed thought and beliefs are always associated with feelings and emotions. Because of this association the most effective and direct way to differentiate between belief and fact is to become attentive to one’s own feelings. Why am I feeling defensive, why am I feeling annoyed and so on – ... invariably in the early stages of actualism one will find a dearly-held belief. RESPONDENT: It is possible to annoy the crap out of somebody – NOT by challenging their beliefs but by constantly misunderstanding and misinterpreting them. If someone tells you they do not believe in UFOs, and you proceed as if they DO believe in UFOs, and if this continues month after month, they’re going to get annoyed with you. PETER: Beliefs are generic to the human condition – they are part and parcel of being a human being. This is what makes talking about beliefs such a sensitive issue for many people – so close to the bone that strong passions are very often aroused. This is why I am wary of talking about beliefs with people in any forum other than the safety of this mailing list. I assume that correspondents who subscribe to this mailing list, and are sincerely interested in becoming free of the human condition, will welcome the opportunity of taking a clear-eyed look at the many and varied beliefs that give credence to the human condition without resort to the rancour and resentment that usually accompany such discussions. What Vineeto and I discovered is that the way to avoid the usual emotional reactions that invariably accompany any investigation of beliefs is that each of us remembered not to take the issue in question personally but to ‘put the issue on the table in front of us’ … and then sit back and discuss it. By doing this it became clear to us that what we were discussing was not our own personal precious-to-us beliefs but that what we were investigating was what lay on the table – one specific aspect of the human condition. This simple approach meant that we disempowered the usual instinctual reactions that arise when people discuss their beliefs and by doing so we were able to have a mutual, non-confrontational, discussion about the fallacies, flaws and passions that are inevitably at the core of any belief such that we were able to find the facts of the matter. Once we had found the fact of the matter, the belief deflated along with its associated passions and peace and harmony prevailed yet again. And as we ticked our way through each of our lists the peace and harmony between us became more and more palpable – deflating beliefs is such a delicious thing to do. You are rewarded with a palpable sense of freedom, you get to feel happier and, even more importantly, you get to become a little less harmful. RESPONDENT: And it’s not because you’re challenging one of their deeply held beliefs, it’s because you are engaging them in senseless argument by being impervious to what they are telling you, and being so damned arrogant as to think you are in full possession of the facts, so arrogant that you think the other person’s emotional reaction is caused by you being RIGHT about their beliefs! Snap out of it dude. It is tedious, and it goes nowhere. PETER: Beliefs are invariably associated with emotional reactions and I would have thought that this was obvious to any astute observer of the human condition – one only needs to visit an ashram or a church, sit at the feet of, or read the words of a spiritual master, hear a committed environmentalist speak, observe any debate between people who have opposing political views, witness the anger evoked in street demonstrations, become aware oneself of whatever it is that one feels passionately about, and so on. And every night on the television news you will see human beings championing their beliefs and defending their beliefs to the point where they will even kill other human beings whom they think to be wrong or feel deeply hurt because they think their particular beliefs or rights are being neglected, abused or challenged. * PETER: But then again we have had this conversation before –
RESPONDENT: Too fucking right we have! PETER: The point I was making in the previous conversation was that the only way to investigate one’s own ‘hidden beliefs and assumptions’ is to first begin to become attentive to one’s own feelings. I presume your reference to cognitive dissonance meant that you were having trouble understanding this fundamental point which is very understandable – being attentive to how one is feeling, when one is feeling the feeling, is not something that comes naturally or easily, particularly at the beginning – it takes stubborn intent to break the habits of a life-time. From what you say now, it appears that you have passed the stage of cognitive dissonance but have yet to fully take on board the fact that a belief is an emotion-backed thought and this is where observation of the human condition in action in general is useful, because it serves to remind one that it is, after all, the human condition in action that is the subject of an actualist’s attentiveness and investigation. * RESPONDENT: The only point I’m really arguing about here is that the word ‘spiritual’ is overloaded. It carries connotations of both religion and supernaturalism, which a materialist has already rejected (though he remains ‘spiritual’ by virtue of his ‘feeling of being’). PETER: Okay. You seem to be arguing – if somewhat by proxy – that you are a materialist because you had already rejected spiritualism before you came to this list. RESPONDENT: No, what I’m arguing is that the way you are using the word ‘spiritual’ is potentially misleading when you are corresponding with people who do not have beliefs in supernatural entities (but DO have a feeling of ‘being’). For Christ’s sake, how many actual real-life examples do you need to see before this gets through your skull? PETER: You might recall that I have previously referred to what you have snipped from our previous conversation –
This is what I said in the piece you snipped –
As you can see I have been upfront as to why it is that your claim to have no spiritual beliefs (and to have never have had any spiritual beliefs?) is somewhat spurious. To attempt to shift this conversation off the topic and on to the meaning of the word spiritual is an obvious attempt to avoid the issue that we are discussing – spiritual beliefs.
RESPONDENT: Since the issue of my ‘spiritual beliefs’ does not seem to want to go away, let’s get it over with. <snip> I don’t see that I have any spiritual/supernatural beliefs at all. Honestly, truly, sincerely, I do not think I have any spiritual beliefs. If you still think I have some, please be specific so we can deal with this once and for all. <snip> You continually imply that I am avoiding/denying my spiritual beliefs, and that I have an ulterior motive for denying them, and yet I do not have any – and your failure to take this on board frustrates the hell out of me. I just don’t understand it. Tell me, how can I be expected to deal with this in the way that you expect, given that your expectations are so out of sync with what I am telling you about myself? You and I would get on a whole lot better if you did not continue to assume that you know more about me than I know about myself. I am not trying to be evasive about a belief I do not want to expose or lose or challenge. Peter, if you think I have some spiritual beliefs, I’m all ears. Honestly. The reason our dialogue disintegrates is not because a belief of mine is being challenged (including the belief that I have no beliefs!) but rather because you continue to roll out your stock standard stuff without taking a blind bit of notice of what I tell you, as if my own knowledge of what I believe and don’t believe is quite irrelevant because you know better. You DON’T! Do you understand this yet? What will it take to wipe the slate clean so that we can have sincere and reasonable discussions now and in future? Whatever you think it takes I’m willing to give it a try, because this kind of conversation really sucks. PETER: If I can take the liberty of summarizing the discussion and including all of the main participants – The thread of the recent conversation began when No 37 queried something I had written on the Actual Freedom Trust website –
No 37’s current response to this report of my discovery has been to present a list of people, including yourself, of whom he said ‘I’ve read enough to be confident that they are non-spiritual (as in no spiritual beliefs)’ and he has also included himself on the list. After I had pointed out that at least some of his confidence in the previous list of so-called atheistic scientists he had offered was flawed, his current stance is that he wonders whether he and I ‘can have any productive conversation or dialogue on this topic at all’ because I ‘refuse to look at the facts, or are ignorant of them, or because [I am] using words in some ill-defined way’. And your response – after becoming very annoyed that I questioned your conviction that you have no spiritual beliefs whatsoever – is to now say ‘I don’t see that I have any spiritual/ supernatural beliefs at all. ‘Honestly, truly, sincerely, I do not think I have any spiritual beliefs’. Your current stance is that I ‘continue to roll out your stock standard stuff without taking a blind bit of notice of what I tell you, as if my own knowledge of what I believe and don’t believe is quite irrelevant because you know better. You DON’T!’ In summary, the current state of the slate is that you both report that you are confident that you have no spiritual, as in religious, mystical or metaphysical, beliefs whatsoever – whilst what I said was the experiential report that I was amazed at what I discovered when I began to really investigate the human condition. To me, the slate is very clear.
PETER: You wrote the following to Vineeto, but given that you have made mention of me, I thought to correct some misconceptions: RESPONDENT to Vineeto: Some people choose beliefs according to their utility value. (What does it buy me? Does it make me happy? Is it reassuring? Will it bring me peace? Will it serve me well in a crisis? How can I use it? Who else believes it? Can I trust the person who’s telling me this? Do I like the person who’s telling me this? Do I want to BE like them? etc) Other people examine ideas, statements, hypotheses, explanations, theories as provisional models which either do or don’t conform to objective reality. (You might have noticed that these two types of people have been in conflict for a couple of thousand years?) PETER: Which only emphasises how silly it is hold to any beliefs whatsoever, be they religious, spiritual, metaphysical, mystical, humanistic, atheistic, materialistic or whatever. Beliefs are the bane of humankind. RESPONDENT: I’m one of the latter, for better or worse. If an idea, thought, model, theory, whatever, is comforting, reassuring, beautiful, but most likely untrue, it is useless to me as a belief. It never becomes something I trust in, rely on, or defend. As a consequence, I have not been willing or able to believe in anything supernatural for a long, long time. Now, you and Peter, evidently being of the other type who select beliefs on the basis of their utility rather than their factuality, seem not to understand this. PETER: No. The image you have concocted of me has no basis in fact and if you care to read my journal you will see that it is a fabrication. Before I became a spiritualist I would have described myself as being an atheist, as the notion of an omnipotent God was a nonsense to me as was the idea of a life-after-death. I came across spiritualism for the first time in my life about age 35 and the attraction was two-fold – the possibility of freedom before physical death and the idea of living in peaceful communes so as to prove that is possible for human beings to live together in peace and harmony. I also would have described myself as an atheist during this period as the notion of an omnipotent God was a nonsense to me as was the notion of a life-after-death. The belief that spiritual people are capable of living together in peace and harmony was gradually dispelled as the dream faded and the ‘it’s every man and women for themselves’ reality set in. The other shocking thing was that when my guru died he had ‘Never born, never died, just visited the planet’ chiselled on his tombstone. In other words, I had been conned into believing that Eastern spiritualism had nothing to do with a life-after-death which is clearly wrong as all Eastern religion includes the belief in life-after-death. The other relevant point to make is that I never ‘chose beliefs according to their utility value’ as you put it. I was born into a Western, Anglo-Saxon, Christian society which inevitably meant that I developed a social identity that was made up of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, ideas and opinions of the parents, peers and society I was born into. Nobody is able to ‘choose beliefs according to their unity value’ as every other human being born on the planet inevitably imbibes a full set of beliefs, values, morals, ethics, ideas and opinions which become the very substance of their social identities. A social conscience is another way of describing this identity – a ‘someone’ who keeps the instinctual urges under control such that one is able to function as a fit and useful member of society. There is a good deal written about this on the Actual Freedom Trust website if you are interested in
following it up. The The Actual Freedom Trust Library topic RESPONDENT: You (pl – especially Peter) automatically assume that other people are like you, and unfortunately you (pl – especially Peter) are largely deaf and blind to counter information. PETER: I automatically assume that other people are essentially like me in that all human beings born inevitably develop a social identity that overlays the instinctual self or being that is genetically-encoded in each and every fertilized egg and which is fully formed by about age 2 years. RESPONDENT: As I’ve explained, rather than having spiritual beliefs that I must let go, I was never able to acquire them in the first place. I just couldn’t convince myself that these comforting beliefs in supernatural entities were actually true/ correct/ factual. I couldn’t believe them if I tried (and I did try). So I find it ludicrous when someone who a few short years ago was shouting ‘yahooo!!!’ at an empty chair tells me how necessary and how difficult it is to lose those precious spiritual beliefs. PETER: Swapping one’s beliefs or changing one’s beliefs or even rejecting beliefs is one thing but intentionally undertaking a process of deliberately exposing all of one’s own beliefs is quite another. When I was a normal bloke, I became very disillusioned with the materialistic beliefs that I was told were the way-it-is and when I came across Eastern spirituality and its beliefs they appeared to me to be ‘the truth’ because they pointed to the paucity of material beliefs and they pointed to the possibility of a freedom from these beliefs based on the experiential observation that one can become free of one’s personal identity. Abandoning the spiritual path and turning around proved to be only the start of a long and intense process of exposing all of the beliefs I either held dear or had not previously bothered to investigate for lack of interest and intent. I was not only amazed at the extent to which Eastern spirituality has permeated Western philosophy, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, science, eduction and medicine, but also at the extent to which I still held many religious/ spiritual beliefs, values, morals, ethics, ideas and opinions as a result of my childhood social conditioning – the beliefs that I thought I had rejected or thought I had transcended still lay dormant for lack of the genuine intent to actively dismantle my social and instinctual identity. RESPONDENT: Here is something that might help you (addressed mainly to Peter) to deal with newcomers in future: When it comes to seeing through false beliefs, you came down in the last shower. You are a beginner. You think that seven years of unlearning your supernatural beliefs now makes you a seasoned expert in seeing through self-deception, but it doesn’t work that way. (On the contrary, your approach to actualism still has all the hallmarks of the ‘true believer’ mentality; it is strongly suggestive of the same old head-down, forehead-first, truth-be-fucked approach that you’ve had all along, only this time you’ve got a new and better set of ideas to give your life meaning, direction, purpose.) PETER: I have already pointed out that what you feel about me is far from fact and I can only suggest that you read my journal if you want to acquaint yourself with the facts of the matter. RESPONDENT: Anyway, to summarise: in my opinion there is quite a difference between ‘spirituality’ that is characterised by (a) impassioned investigation that is satisfied only by truth/factuality; and (b) impassioned adherence to and defence of a set of ideas, principles or practices that provide emotional comfort and/or promised benefit to the believer, regardless of their truth/falsehood. PETER: Any and all spirituality is a crock – I wonder why you bother to make a distinction between the differing passions and motives of spiritual followers. RESPONDENT: It may be a bit like the difference between a religious fanatic and a scientist. But perhaps you (pl) don’t consider that distinction useful either, since both scientists and suicide bombers are ‘spiritual’ per actualist usage. PETER: I take it from the thrust of your conversation that you regard yourself as being more of the scientist type. If so, the following conversation may be worth revisiting –
The point being that one does need to have trod the spiritual path experientially to have taken on board spiritual beliefs as they are rife in many aspects of Western science and psychology, not to mention philosophy, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, eduction and medicine. * VINEETO: Given that you said you are interested in becoming free from the
human condition in toto which includes becoming free from all spiritual belief including one’s spiritual outlook, why is it so important
to you to make a distinction between the two? Why bother distinguishing between them if both must eventually fall by the wayside on the wide and
wondrous path? RESPONDENT: The reason is simple. You’re trying to have sensible discussions here, right? PETER: Indeed, and you would be well aware that it is difficult to have a sensible discussion about the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, ideas and opinions and passions that constitute the human condition because these same beliefs, values, morals, ethics, ideas and opinions and passions prevent sensibility from operating – if this were not the case, all human beings would be easily able to live in peace and harmony with each other. RESPONDENT: You’re not just trying to use a bunch of other people as an audience for your own mind-numbing rationalisations, right? PETER: The reason I take the time to write is that the discovery of an actual freedom from malice and sorrow is far to important to remain silent about or to be cowered about discussing in public. I always figure that there is another Peter or another Vineeto who will be vitally interested in reading about how the actualism method works in practice in eliminating the debilitating effects of malice and sorrow. RESPONDENT: You’re not just creating a place where you can say something so often that it becomes true, right? PETER: Repetition is an important part of learning something new. I often find that I need to do something new at least 3 times before I ‘get it’ and given the radical nature of actualism sometimes it took many discussions and readings before I intellectually understood something and many recurrences of the recognitions of a belief or a personal conviction before I finally experientially understood the futility of holding on to the belief or conviction in the face of the facts of the matter. RESPONDENT: Let’s assume you really are interested in communicating with other people. PETER: I haven’t tallied up the words or the time I have spent in writing to you, but your assumption is correct. RESPONDENT: If you speak to a skeptical/ secular spiritual ‘being’ as if s/he is a supernaturalist/ religious spiritual ‘being’, you are wasting your time, your energy and theirs. PETER: The advantage of writing on a public mailing list is that others may well be interested in investigating whatever religious, spiritual, metaphysical, mystical, humanistic, atheistic and materialistic beliefs they hold to be truths whether they are dearly held beliefs or the less obvious ones that one has imbibed via the inevitable childhood socialization process. RESPONDENT: You are inviting unnecessary misunderstanding and conflict. PETER: Indeed, but there is no other way to say that the only way to become actually free from malice and sorrow is to devote one’s life to becoming happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: Distinguishing between these two types of ‘spirituality’ is very easy, and it could resolve potential misunderstandings quickly and effortlessly, allowing people to move onto more interesting stuff. It sounds reasonable to me. PETER: Once upon a time I was keen to leave any mention of spirituality out of actualism altogether but this proved impossible because it was obvious that those who would be interested in actualism would be those who found materialism wanting and those who have found materialism wanting would have at least checked out spiritualism to some degree, be it experientially or intellectually. As such, their idea of what it is to be free of the human condition would be inevitably coloured by Eastern spirituality and Eastern philosophy and they would inevitably confuse the actualism method with the passive awareness widely practiced in both the East and the West. The best I could come up with as a straight-forward secular presentation of actualism was RESPONDENT: For the life of me, I cannot fathom why it meets with such dogged and boneheaded resistance, but so be it. That’s the way things are around here, evidently. PETER: When I became an actualist I never had a dogged and boneheaded resistance to investigating my spiritual beliefs because I had walked the Eastern spiritual path for years and I knew experientially that the beliefs were a sham in that they did nothing but produce delusionary states and they do nothing to address the problem of eliminating the instinctual malice and sorrow that plagues humankind. RESPONDENT: In any dialogue there is more than just an exchange of information. For example, just look at Peter’s recent reply to No 45 in which he use No 45 as an opportunity to fang into all and sundry, then to rally the support of the supposed ‘silent majority’ (who for all we know might regard him as just as insufferable as the so-called vocal minority), and finally to gloat about how outrageously happy he thinks he is. Do you see any genuine regard for No 45 in there, V? Do you see anything but ill-concealed malice toward the other list members? Even a few cheap shots at one who certainly does NOT deserve it? I don’t. What I see is something akin to a single-issue politician at work, a politician with limited intelligence, zero altruism, but boundless ambition, and plenty of cunning. (See, you too can discover the joys of reading ‘ulterior motives’ into another’s words. You too can discover the sheer delight in peering behind ‘smokescreens’ instead of taking people’s words at face value) and passing on their personal experiences of the process they underwent or are currently undergoing. PETER: As for my not taking your words at face value, we have been over this territory before –
Perhaps I can just add to this in another way that might make sense to you. Whilst one can be on the path to ‘transcendence of the human drama’, or contemplate taking the path, without having a belief in a supernatural entity – as was my case – it is pertinent to take on board that the whole notion of transcendence is based on the ancient belief that the ego is the problem and that the solution is to ‘realize’ that one’s instinctual being is one’s ‘true Self’ … and this belief is a spiritual belief. And I’ll just finish by repeating what I have written to you several times before in the interest of clearly communicating what I am saying –
RESPONDENT: Anyone know why animals don’t have an affective response to music but human babies do? PETER: Broadly speaking, all animals who are capable of detecting sound have an instinctual response to sound whereas human animals have, in addition to this instinctual response, a culturally- induced affective response to the specific arrangement of sounds they refer to as ‘music’. As to your specific question, I have heard of farmers who play soothing music to their cows whilst milking, presumably in order to keep them calm during milking. Similarly I have heard of mothers playing soothing music in order to calm their babies and I have even heard that unborn babies still in the womb exhibit what can only be an instinctive response to sound when music is directed at the womb. I don’t have more to add but I am sure you would find that there is a good deal of research done on the subject – as well as a wealth of lore, myth and misinformation of course – most of which is only a mouse click away. I notice that this thread has now moved on to discussing the behaviour, instinctual reactions, emotions and/or feelings of cats and dogs – something I have no interest in at all. What I did however find fascinating in my early years of studying the human condition was the behaviour, the instinctual reactions, emotions and feelings of chimpanzees, given that that particular animal species is often referred to as ‘genetic cousins’ to we human animals. (Homo sapiens and chimps reportedly share some 98% of the same DNA.) The fact that wild chimps exhibit a gamut of emotions that range from blind homicidal rage at one end of
the spectrum to utter despair at the other, that their natural behaviour Recently I came across a book authored by a primate researcher who had studied chimps in the wild for many years. In the book the author explored and documented the most salient aspects of human violence and in doing so detailed the parallels of violence within chimp communities. It turned out that one of his motivations in writing the book was his frustration at social anthropologists and the like who continue to unabashedly lay the blame for human violence on socialization whilst continuing to ignore and deny the evidence that such behaviour is in fact instinctual. One paragraph in particular stood out as what he has to say mirrors the difficulty that most correspondents have on this mailing list in discussing human instinctual passions let alone dare to become self-aware of when and how they operate –
This head-in-the-sand attitude that Ghiglieri talks of is in no way confined to the social sciences. The current ‘new dark age’ is fuelled by an increasingly mindless fervour for all things spiritual, mystical and metaphysical, a fervour that is exemplified by the ascendancy of pantheistic and animistic beliefs that are the very core of the new world-wide religion of Environmentalism. Obviously breaking free of all head-in-the-sand belief is the necessary first step to take before one can be able to freely discuss the pivotal role that the genetically-encoded instinctual passions have in both generating and perpetuating human animosity and anguish. Which, curiously enough, is what actualism is about.
PETER:
This head-in-the-sand attitude that Ghiglieri talks of is in no way confined to the social sciences. The current ‘new dark age’ is fuelled by an increasingly mindless fervour for all things spiritual, mystical and metaphysical, a fervour that is exemplified by the ascendancy of pantheistic and animistic beliefs that are the very core of the new world-wide religion of Environmentalism. Obviously breaking free of all head-in-the-sand belief is the necessary first step to take before one can be able to freely discuss the pivotal role that the genetically-encoded instinctual passions have in both generating and perpetuating human animosity and anguish. Which, curiously enough, is what actualism is about. RESPONDENT: Yes, considering that the vast majority of us (‘humanity’) either believe in the fundamental innocence of animals and children, or we suffer the cynicism and hopelessness of not being able to believe in it any longer, it’s a good thing there’s a third alternative. To be honest, actualism still scares me a lot of the time (even after a year). From a normal perspective, some aspects of it really are scary, no two ways about it. But sometimes a momentary glimpse of what lies beyond the human (animal) condition makes those fears and reservations seem quite laughable. PETER: I was recently having a chat with someone who is just starting to become really fascinated with the human condition and how it operates. Our discussion soon turned to one particular aspect of the human condition that was pertinent to him at the moment. It turned out that there was something he was expected to do because it was as a duty that society demanded of him. He said that the first issues that came up were related to what others would think and feel about him if he didn’t do what he was expected to do. We chatted about the fact that what he was discovering was his conscience in action – the collection of morals, ethics and values that have been instilled in him to ensure that he remain a good and fit member of society. He also revealed that he was starting to become aware that there was a layer deeper than this level and it soon became clear as we talked that he was beginning to experience the instinctual passions in action. He went on to talk about the instinctual compulsion in question, in this case nurture, as the issue related to his being a father. After we had talked about this for a while the subject moved on to fear because this particular issue had been worrying him for while – the worry he was experiencing was in fact the feeling of fear. After we had chatted for a while longer I asked him what had initially made him consider not doing what was both socially expected and instinctually demanded of him. He replied that he had recently come to understand the insidious nature of the human condition (he is an avid reader of Richard’s Journal and as a consequence has learnt a good deal about the human condition in a surprisingly short time), and because of this he finds that to continue doing what he is ‘expected’ to do, just because others expect him to do it, does not sit well with him at all. As we discussed the issue further we agreed that it was simply a matter of integrity – once one clearly sees that one’s current course of action is not only harmful to oneself but also harmful to others, one’s own integrity impels one to act. It soon turned out that he had in fact already made the decision he was talking about which is why the feelings that he was having had come to the surface. As such, he wasn’t experiencing the pre-decision fears that usually manifest in the form of debilitating doubt, nor the stultifying type of fear that results in the freeze reaction of doing nothing – the ‘rabbit in the headlight’ reaction. Instead he discovered in the course of the conversation that he was experiencing the fear of the consequences of a course of action he had already committed himself to. In the end, he shrugged his shoulders and acknowledged that despite his fears, he was still going to do what his integrity demanded he do. What particularly interested me in the conversation was that his feeling of fear manifested as what he called ‘worries’ – men being generally less demonstrative of their feelings than women, which means they typically tend to label them as unwanted or undesirable thoughts rather than what they are, unwanted and undesirable feelings – and that it was integrity that caused him to act despite these feelings arising. And the reason I was interested was that what he was saying accorded with my own experience. His companion had a slightly different story to tell because her newly-found interest in the human condition had brought up feelings of fear in her as well, not as worry so much but as a keeping-her-awake-at-night, heart-felt, fear. She asked me what I did about fear when I first started to be an actualist. I had to think a bit because fear was not a big thing for me at the start of actualism – it was more a question of how long was I prepared to delay breaking with my past and heading off on a new adventure. I told her I soon became aware that fear was simply a feeling that came and went every now again, albeit very strongly at times, and that I had further become aware that it very often arose as a consequence of my having already decided to do something (or not do something) rather than as a precursor to making a decision. She nodded as though she could relate to what I was saying and then said that the feelings of fear had become less lately and that she was lately more excited by the business of beginning to experientially understand the whys and hows of the human condition in action. Her face lit up as she began to talk about some of the things she had already discovered and freely asked questions about aspects that she had yet to explore. It became apparent to me that she had discovered that fear can readily be transformed into thrill once one begins to do what one only moments before had been experienced as being scary to do. I won’t go on as the point of this story is not the discussion I was having, nor the particular people involved, but to make the point that you are not alone in the feelings you are having – in fact given the radical nature of actualism, it is only natural and normal to experience such feelings from time to time. RESPONDENT: A brief detour: last night I was idly browsing some online porn when I was shocked by an unexpected and totally incongruous image: it was an elderly woman, presumably dead, with the top of her skull missing, brain completely exposed. It was shocking and revolting. I felt a surge of anger toward whatever moron had taken the picture (along with a kind of current-affairs-y indignation: ‘You sick bastards, that could be someone’s mother!’) When the memory came back to me this morning it jolted me out of my usual mode of thinking, which can be a good thing sometimes. What struck me (not for the first time, but particularly clearly) was the futility and foolishness of clinging to the ‘good’ side of humanity for protection against the ‘bad’ side. ‘Humanity’ is itself the problem; it’s a crude and primitive thing that has long outlived its usefulness, and yet we cling to its ‘goodness’ as if it were something valuable, sacred even. (Which is quite understandable and reasonable, if we know no different). But the fact is, the ‘good’ side of humanity is just as primitive and unnecessary as the ‘bad’ side. Seen from the clean purity of the actual world, the struggling souls of living beings seem to be such silly encumbrances. And that is a fact, even though glimpses of it may be fleeting. PETER: I remember many such incidents happening to me when I first started to become aware of the human condition. I often found myself suddenly appalled and shocked by many things that I had glossed over, turned away from or buried my head in the sand rather than clearly looking at. In hindsight, it was a fascinating period because these realizations about the nature of what is known as human nature compelled me to do something about bringing an end to human malice and sorrow in the only way that I practically can. RESPONDENT: Happy Christmas to you and Vineeto. PETER: Whilst I appreciate the intent of the comment it is somewhat misdirected, as neither Vineeto or I believe in Santa Claus, nor are we Christians, let alone do we ever have any reason to be unhappy. Nice to have the opportunity to chat with you.
RESPONDENT to No 32: (…) ‘Ends are ape-chosen, only the means are man’s’ Aldous Huxley – Ape and Essence. http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/apenesnc.html PETER: With reference to the link you provided, I don’t know whether or not you noticed but Professor Chuck Holiday’s main page also contained links he referred to as ‘Links for your Amusement’ – http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/misclinks.html. One of these links is the ‘Bad Science Page’ which I came across several years ago. At the time I found it informative in understanding how and why so much bad science is taught in schools and as a consequence why people find it so hard to divest themselves of it at a latter stage in their life. You may well also find the ‘Pathetic Fallacy’ link and the ‘Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide’ link on the ‘Bad Science Page’ informative if you are wont to investigate the vast conglomerate of bad science and impassioned beliefs that underpins the supposed doomsday-ism and imagined salvation-ism of Environmentalism. It is my experience that abandoning spiritual beliefs is a piece of cake compared to daring to investigate the real-world beliefs that cause all human beings to see this paradisiacal planet through a glass darkly.
RESPONDENT to No 66: Of course the process would accelerate if you force yourself to become a blind fanatic. It’s like the above. If you disable your ability to question and criticise what you’re doing, you’ll have certainty ... but refusing to listen to your objections does not render them invalid. I understand your desire to throw doubt and caution to the wind, but I think the only thing you’ll get by switching off your ability to question is another religious conversion. If actualism is ‘fair dinkum’, it should not be necessary to turn a blind eye to anything. PETER: I vaguely remember at one stage thinking such thoughts but what I found was that much of my thinking was plagued by the world-weary cynicism that I had unwittingly taken on board in my life. Once I managed to scrape sufficient of this cynicism away I was able to rekindle my naiveté such that I could unreservedly question the wisdoms, truths and psittacisms that caused me to have a cynical view of life in the first place. I do understand that most people equate naiveté with foolishness but I found that I had to be naïve in order to even consider that peace on earth was already always here and only ‘I’ stood in the way of it become apparent 24/7. As for your comment about becoming ‘a blind fanatic’ When I took this on board, I realized that I was starting to think in a way that was fundamentally different to the rest of my fellow human beings, and I do mean fundamentally. This inexorably lead to me coming face-to-face with the realization that it is a deeply cynical viewpoint to think that we human beings will never ever be able to live together in peace and harmony – and the flip-side of this realization was the beginning of a hundred percent certainty that this is not only possible but that it is inevitable now that the way out of the human condition has been forged.
VINEETO: A virtual free person is not entirely free of feelings – which is impossible while still being a ‘being’ – but has diminished both malice and sorrow (the bad feelings) and their pacifiers (the good feelings) in order to fully experience the felicitous feelings and enjoy the sensate pleasure of being alive. The urgency to clean myself up from both the bad and the good feelings arose not only from having activated my naiveté but also from having developed a concern and consideration for my fellow human beings whom I wished to free from the effects of my malice and my sorrow – it had nothing at all to do with having ‘a sense of ‘divine’ destiny’ nor of being ‘‘chosen’ to fulfil a mission’ (and nor did it with Richard if you care to carefully read his Journal). Incidentally the actualism method does not ‘devalue’ feelings per se but the combination of an on-going attentiveness and pure intent enables you to make a choice between the different feelings that occur. Once you have understood, in your own right, that malice and sorrow create havoc both in yourself and in others and that love and compassion do exactly the same then the choice for the felicitous feelings becomes obvious and easy. Make sense? RESPONDENT: Yes, it does. The trouble is that it while it makes good sense intellectually it just isn’t working out that way in practice. I’ve thought about this a lot; I will not go on as I am (it just sucks too badly, I’ve given it a fair trial, it isn’t working), but I am not going to give up, OR move the goal posts. Going to try out a few different approaches. PETER: I just thought to add an unsolicited comment with regard to your on-going dilemma. In my early days of being interested in actualism I was building a house for a client and we were using a water-based paint called Cabot’s Clear Finish on some internal woodwork. One day I happened to notice that printed across the lid of each can of paint was a single line of words which read ‘If All Else Fails Read The Instructions’. Somehow it stuck in my mind, as at the time it seemed to be very pertinent.
RESPONDENT to No 37: When I see Peter in action, I see the very same blind cretin who was once prepared to kill and die for his belief in Mohan Rajneesh. Same person, different set of beliefs – only now he’s utterly impenetrable, an impregnable fortress of certainty. PETER: This is what I actually said –
Has it not occurred to you that the reason I asked myself the theoretical question and gave an honest most probably ‘yes’ answer – and even made public the answer – was that I was being scrupulously honest with myself not only about the insidiousness of belief but also of the depths of passion that ‘I’ am capable of? What I was describing was me getting off my moral high horse and digging down inside myself and discovering that deep down inside ‘I’ am no different than any other ‘I’s. Here’s yet another example of me getting in touch with my feelings and being scrupulously honest with myself about the depths of feelings that all human beings are capable of –
Immediately followed by –
And further for the record, this is what I wrote immediately after my theoretical question –
Little did I know that by making the depths of my feelings known in public that I would one day be pilloried for having acknowledged having such feelings on a mailing list set up as a forum for those interested in discussing how to investigate and become free of such feelings. But then again this forum, like all of the events in one’s daily life, does provide all of the participants and all of the readers the opportunity to observe the human condition in action – provided one doesn’t dissociate oneself from it, of course.
PETER: Why you suggest that any spiritualist should berate themselves for the failure of spirituality to bring an end to human malice and sorrow is quite frankly beyond me. RESPONDENT No 74: Why you berate your fellow actualists for not practising sincerely enough comes in the same bucket, doesn’t it? PETER: Hmmm. Perhaps you could give me an example of my berating my ‘fellow actualists’ for not practicing sincerely enough. RESPONDENT No 74: Richard is on record for having told (No 33, I think) that the reason actualist method is not working for him is his lack of interest, and diligence of application (in some other words). RESPONDENT: It was PETER: Rather than having us rely on the accuracy of your memory, could you perhaps make the effort to post the particular example you have offered in support of someone else’s claim that Richard has berated someone (?) for not practicing actualism sincerely enough?
RESPONDENT No 89: While at it – could you do the same [clarify authorship] for this fragment, from the same website, please?
RESPONDENT: Chiming in here because this is one of my pet peeves with regard to ‘actualism’. Whoever the author, it (especially the emphasised section) is bloody ridiculous. It says in effect that whatever is not known to be fact is known to be fiction/ illusion. PETER: No, this is what was said –
... the subject being separating out facts from fiction. It does not say ‘whatever is not known to be fact is known to be fiction/illusion’ because that would be plainly ridiculous. One of the major problems with having pet peeves is that one needs to keep feeding them lest they die – and if one didn’t keep feeding them one would end up with nothing to feel peeved about. The other thing about having pet peeves is that the emotion of feeling peeved invariably prevents one from being able to clearly read or listen to what another is saying, from understanding the context in which they are writing it or saying it, let alone be open to the possibility that what the other is writing or saying might well be sensible and indeed might well contain some useful information. RESPONDENT: In such a simplistic schema there is no room for possibilities, unknowns, things which may or may not be actual facts but currently lie outside the scope of one’s certain knowledge. PETER: Well it’s your simplistic schema, your extrapolation – I made no mention of ‘possibilities, unknowns, things which may or may not be actual facts but currently lie outside the scope of one’s certain knowledge.’ There are many, many things I don’t know but I made it my business to separate out fact from fiction with regard to any issues that stood in the way of my being happy and my being harmless. Some of these were indeed big issues such as whether or not I believe there is life after death, whether or not I believe that all of the matter that is the universe was instantly created in a Big Bang event, whether or not matter does exist in fact and whether or not it behaves in predictable and definable ways, whether or not there is a spiritual world that is ‘my’ rightful place, whether or not human malice and sorrow is solely caused by the genetically-encoded animal instinctual survival passions, and so on. Me thinks you are but crying wolf in order to fabricate yet another opportunity of ‘sharing’ a pet peeve. RESPONDENT: (Therefore agnosticism on the big questions is a vice, a weakness of character, a lack of integrity). PETER: Whilst you make no secret on this list of your dogmatic stance in favour of agnosticism, I personally do not necessarily see it being a weakness of character or a lack of integrity but rather as a stubborn conviction that locks you out of taking the necessary steps to becoming as happy as harmless as is humanly possible in order that you can move closer to becoming free of the human condition in toto, should you so wish. I am not in the business of passing judgements on what others choose to do with their lives particularly as I have spent a good deal of my life indulging in pursuits, and believing in fictions, that were less than salubrious – what I do however, is report to those who are interested, the benefits of living a life virtually free of malice and sorrow, both to myself and those I come in contact with in my daily life. RESPONDENT: It sounds like vintage Peter to me. If true to form, he will not even understand what is wrong with it. Instead he’ll portray the objection as a form of agnosticism-as-belief-system, a deep-rooted belief in The Unknowable, inspired by Eastern Spirituality ... and all the usual absurdities. PETER: This is but yet another version of the ‘you are being dogmatic but I am most definitely, absolutely, not being dogmatic’ argument that ends up going nowhere. I don’t know whether or not you have noticed but that there is a revolving door on this mailing list of people who come to this list with the sole motivation of telling all and sundry that they are ‘right’ and the actualists are ‘wrong’. It has become clear over time that many of theses correspondents have no interest at all in becoming happy and harmless themselves and many of them have not even read what is on offer on the Actual Freedom Trust website, let alone been bothered with spending any time trying to understand it, and the end result is that yet another protagonist exits stage left having done nothing else but demonstrate the human condition in action. The problem with adapting an ‘I am right’ and ‘you are wrong’ stance to actualism and to actualists is that the very criteria upon which such an interchange is based is so flawed as to be meaningless. The first flaw is that any such discussion is by nature an emotional discussion, which means that feelings such as pride, envy, resentment, anger, competitiveness and so on invariably arise such that a straightforward, down-to-earth sensible assessment of what is being offered here very soon becomes nay on impossible. I am not talking theory here – the senselessness of emotionally-charged knee-jerk reactions is something one can see in operation in almost every human-to-human interaction as well as in one’s own interactions with other people. Curiously, some people even gain a perverse pleasure from this type of interaction – I can only suppose their reasoning is that, given that such interactions are the ‘norm’ within the human condition, why not be good at it. The second flaw relates to the very nature of what is on offer on the Actual Freedom Trust website, writings which relate to what it is to be a human being in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are – not ‘who’ you should be or ‘who’ you shouldn’t be, which you is the real you, what is right about the world as-it-is and what is wrong about the world as-it-is, what is good about people as-they-are and what is bad about people as-they-are, what beliefs are right and what beliefs are wrong and so on and so on. Thus any argumentation about who is ‘right’ and who is ‘wrong’, and what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ completely misses the point because the only evaluation worthy of the name evaluation is an intelligent and sensible evaluation and any evaluations that are hobbled by morality, ethicality, beliefs or passions are far from being intelligent and far from being sensible. A point worth making here is that many people mistake intellectual cleverness for intelligence and thereby miss out that a down-to-earth intelligence is what common sense means when it is put into practice. The third flaw applies generally in all situations when one encounters something brand new. Most people who encounter something new for the first time tend to try and fit it into their pre-existing mindset, suffer from frustration when their previous knowledge is inadequate in understanding something new and become exasperated with the process of having to give up their expertise in the old ways and start all over again, this time as a rank beginner. In such a situation it makes no sense at all to argue whether or not the new is right or wrong, good or bad – if the new makes sense and if the new produces better results than the old, then the new will inevitably win out, despite the protestations of the defenders of the status quo. It’s all so simple really … which is perhaps why some find it to be frustrating, weird, bizarre, absurd and so on. RESPONDENT: If you think you can get a different result, good luck. I’ll not try any more. It is sufficient for me to point it out, and maybe save others some needless frustration when the inevitable happens. PETER: Time will tell, no doubt, whether or not you can in fact one day finally resist the urge to ‘save others’ on this mailing list from the frustration you apparently so needlessly feel. The problem with any pet, be it an animal, a peeve or a dogmatic viewpoint, is that you have to keep feeding it in order to sustain it and then one eventually becomes so attached to it that one is very, very reluctant to ever let go of it.
RESPONDENT to No 92: What I’m saying is that I see nothing of unique value or novelty in actualism apart from the goal of complete psychic self-immolation. Do you disagree with that? If so, what is there that is novel in actualism apart from that? RESPONDENT No 92: And if you find the goal valuable why not the method to getting there? The method of getting there is the same as the method of doing any other kind of self-modification. Pay attention to what you’re doing, assess it in light of its compatibility with your objective, and change what you’re doing so that it’s more in accord with the goal. Same as it ever was. The goal is unique, but there is nothing in the method that is unique. And until self-immolation occurs there is no change in human nature. That is what I’m suggesting. Do you disagree? PETER: And yet that is not what you suggested several days ago when you said that the method to get there is ‘bullshit’, and ‘another way of jerking off and jerking oneself around’. Vis –
Which is it – ‘no change in human nature’ or, in your judgement, the method brings about a change for the worse in others?
RESPONDENT to No 92: What I’m saying is that I see nothing of unique value or novelty in actualism apart from the goal of complete psychic self-immolation. Do you disagree with that? If so, what is there that is novel in actualism apart from that? RESPONDENT No 92: And if you find the goal valuable why not the method to getting there? The method of getting there is the same as the method of doing any other kind of self-modification. Pay attention to what you’re doing, assess it in light of its compatibility with your objective, and change what you’re doing so that it’s more in accord with the goal. Same as it ever was. The goal is unique, but there is nothing in the method that is unique. And until self-immolation occurs there is no change in human nature. That is what I’m suggesting. Do you disagree? PETER: And yet that is not what you suggested several days ago when you said that the method to get there is ‘bullshit’, and ‘another way of jerking off and jerking oneself around’. Vis –
Which is it – ‘no change in human nature’ or, in your judgement, the method brings about a change for the worse in others? RESPONDENT: I’d say ‘no change in human nature’ ... but rather ... in my judgement, the continuation of the default human state of affairs ... which is one ego game after another. PETER: And yet that is not what you said previously. What you said was ‘This ‘happy and harmless as humanly possible while remaining a self’ (is) bullshit’ and that it is ‘another way of jerking off and jerking oneself around’. Do you still stand by this judgement – a judgement you apparently held ‘all along’?
RESPONDENT No 65 to Richard: My interpretation, by the way you correspond (steamroll/verbally attack), is that peace on earth is no where to be found in your correspondence. You are just another vain ego up on your pedestal imagining your own subjective interpretation (and that is all it can ever be, verbal or otherwise) is the final arbiter, and the interpretations of your correspondents amount to jack shit. RESPONDENT: So many of us see the same thing, and have for years. I’m
sure we’ve all wondered many times whether it was just us, or whether there was really something there to see. How could we all be imagining
this? This was my take on it after a particularly shitful episode back in January ‘04 ... and as far as I can see nothing has changed since then.
Just another dozen or so correspondents have come and gone in apparent disgust or disillusionment. http://lists.topica.com/lists/actualfreedom/read/message.html?mid=909449957
(See PETER: I don’t know whether you have noticed or not but the argument that ‘many of us see the same thing, and have for years’ is a particularly weak one given that the ‘many of us’ you are apparently speaking for are, and have all along been on this mailing list, what is known as the vocal minority. I remember being fascinated by the letters page of the local newspaper for a while in my years of investigating the human condition and wondering what motivated these people to take the time to write letters to the paper not only disparaging this idyllic speck of the planet in such grey and grim terms but also to mount vitriolic personal attacks on others who live here. I came to notice that the letter writers were indeed a vocal minority – by and large the same people reappeared regularly, those with a particular ideology to flog or those with a chip on their shoulder ready to take up the latest antagonistic cause – a vocal minority who take it upon themselves to provoke the underlying fears and resentments and reinforce the inherent prejudices of one section or other of the community against another. The other thing I noticed was that this vocal minority often used exaggeration, misrepresentations, factoids and outright lies together with evocative language in order to convince as many readers as possible to join their cause and fight the good fight against those fellow human beings in the local community they perceived as being evil. Their passion for their cause meant that they had little to no regard at all for facts – apparently, the end justifies any means and if one passionately believes other people to be evil or to be doing evil, then there is nothing they won’t stoop to in order to try and rally others to their cause. The way I got myself out of being a part of this perpetual cycle of antagonism and contrariness that typifies the human condition was to begin at home as it were. Whenever an issue arose between Vineeto and I that was a cause for any antagonism or disagreement, we put the issue on the table, put our personal beliefs, convictions and predilections aside and investigated the facts of the matter. Sometimes the facts revealed that one of us had got it wrong, often that both of us had got it wrong but it mattered little who was wrong, or why, for that matter – when we came to acknowledge the fact of the matter at hand, the fact stood for itself as being a fact. Simple, really – end of any confusion, end of any contradictions, end of antagonism, end of conflict and an irrevocable end of what would have been an ongoing issue that stood in the way of continuing peace and harmony. The other thing I don’t know whether you have noticed or not is that this is what Richard does in his discussions with people who have a chip on their shoulder or an axe to grind on this mailing list. What he does when he chooses to address one of the reoccurring allegations about something they feel he has said or done or something they feel he didn’t say or didn’t do, is to refer readers to what he actually said – i.e. he simply puts the facts of the matter on the table. Of course those who passionately believe their feelings about the matter they have raised to be ‘the truth’ very often do not care a fig about the facts of the matter because, as you would know from observing others, when passion rules the roost common sense is nowhere to be found. Now the question – for those who are interested – is how to break out of this habit if you have found yourself sucked into it, or suckered into it by following the lead of others? As is evidenced and confirmed by a recent correspondent to this mailing list an essential first step is to take a long look at one’s own deeply-ingrained resentment at being born and having to be here. If one cares to break this habit of feeling resentful – and avoid the traditional antidotal trap of feeling gratitude to Someone or Something – the fact that one no longer feels resentful for being here disempowers the very driving force for one’s resentfulness towards one’s fellow human beings together with feelings such as anger, pity, jealousy and envy. The accompanying essential step is to stop focussing one’s attention on how you perceive, as in intuitively feel, others to be and to start paying exclusive attention to the only person whose feelings, intentions, sincerity and integrity you can know for certain – ‘me’. Now the difficulty in actually doing either of these things is that both of them run contrary to the human condition – resentment at having to be here is par for the course within the human condition as is the ongoing obsession with intuiting or interpreting the feelings and motivations of one’s fellow human beings, and not only those human beings we actually get to meet or communicate with directly but also those we have never ever met, based on the by-and-large biased reports of yet others. But then again that’s the challenge intrinsic to the process of actualism – to do something radically different to what everyone else has been biologically programmed to do and socially conditioned to think and feel, to be sensible in that one obeys the laws and conforms to societal protocols yet be a rebel in that one devotes one’s life to not only breaking free from the crowd but to become actually free of the human condition itself.
RESPONDENT to Richard: On further reflection, Richard, I don’t see much point in thinking about you or your claims any longer. Whatever it is you’ve discovered, I’m sure it is great fun for you ... but there is also an obvious (to me) brokenness in there somewhere ... and it is not something I want. Selflessness, absence of malice and sorrow, should (I think, and remember from various times in life, not just PCE’s) result in an easeful and friendly manner that isn’t defensive, pedantic, prone to rub people’s noses in their every mistake, lord it over people, put them down, etc. PETER: If that is your take on how you want to interact with your fellow human beings then might it not be time to contemplate upon your own motives as to why you continue to take the time to write to this mailing list espousing your impressions of others’ behaviour and your assumptions as to their motives to the extent of being offensive, as in being derisive and divisive? RESPONDENT: It should be an obvious improvement that everyone wants to emulate ... PETER: But apparently such an easeful and friendly manner is not something that you would want to
emulate, going by your own manner on this mailing list … as I have personally experienced RESPONDENT: [It should be an obvious improvement that everyone wants to emulate ...] but instead you seem for all money to be a prick that everyone bends over backwards to make allowances for on account of you having something to offer. PETER: It appears to have well and truly escaped your attention that by far the majority of correspondence that Richard has answered on this mailing list since he last had a break from writing has been from correspondents who are bending over backwards to personally attack him for the sole reason that not only has he something to offer and does freely offer it but also because he will not back down from having something to offer and from freely offering it. I have spent a good deal of time over the last 12 months cruising the video mailing lists looking to learn what I can from others’ expertise and I have been astounded at the numbers of correspondents on various lists who are both derisive and divisive. Some come with the obvious intent of putting others down, some come to flog their own agendas, many come to do nothing but moan and grown about the latest developments and innovations, some come spouting theory and speculation with precious little practical hands-on knowledge, others take every comment made as a personal affront and some even come armed with the intent to vent their anger about various issues, manufacturers, organizations or individual people. The reality of these mailing lists is that they exhibit the gamut of the human condition in action and yet, despite all the diversions, nastiness and backbiting, I have managed to learn a good deal about the nuts and bolts of making videos from a few hands-on practitioners who not only know what they are talking about by experience but take the time to pass on their experience to others. Experience over the years has shown that this mailing list is similar in operation – and why should it not be. There are however those who, given sufficient interest in the topic being discussed, will benefit not only from those who have something relevant to say on the topic … but also from those correspondents who fragrantly flaunt their lack of practical experience as well as pridefully parade their prejudices for all to see thereby affording those who have a vital interest in peace on earth the opportunity to be sufficiently attentive so as not to fall into the very same trap. RESPONDENT: Whatever you’ve got, enjoy it, but keep it. PETER: Maybe it is time that you took your own advice –
After all, to not personally act on ‘an obvious improvement’ that you see ‘that everyone wants to emulate’, would be the height of hypocrisy, to say the least. RESPONDENT: I’ve seen enough. Over and out. PETER: Maybe this time around – if you have actually ‘seen’ enough and said enough, that is – you could at least have the courtesy of closing the door behind you as you leave – it saves all that banging in the breeze.
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