PETER: Hi Mark,

Just a note to you about nothing in particular. Good to read your posts. I am at present writing a bit on the Glossary for our web-site and wrote a piece on imagination which I thought I’d post off as it explains a bit about how, and why, we are as we are – i.e.. inflicted with such a pervasive belief that it is not only impossible but somehow ‘wrong’ to be happy. I recently observed a 1 year old baby for a few hours and it particularly struck me that her brain was still in a very formative stage. She had started to get some basic senses sorted out a bit – co-ordination, eating, touching and handling things, recognition, mobility, etc., but walking, talking, communicating, reflecting, contemplating, etc. were still to come. It was a bit like a computer yet to be programmed with the full software – only a few basic functions just working but yet to have a full input of data and as such incapable of any useful independent functioning. I wondered exactly what information she would receive in the coming years until she was able to leave the shelter and protection of her family and emerge into the world as an independent human. It became very apparent that what she was already being programmed with was an imaginary view of the world, rather than an actual view.

So here’s my bit on imagination –

imagination –– The action of imagining or forming mental images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. Scheming or devising; a fanciful project. The faculty of fanciful thought. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: The human brain with its ability to cogitate, reflect and communicate is the peak of intelligence known to be currently manifest in the universe. These unique functions, when overlaid over the instinctual rudimentary ‘self’, produce in humans a much more sophisticated and complex self than in any other animal. Further, this individual sense of self has been painfully aware not only of a ferocious world of wild animals and a harsh environment, but also of the fact that it could die or be killed at any moment. At some seminal moment in evolution, there began a faculty of fanciful thought, an escape from harsh reality and a retreat into the world of imagination. The sun became a thing of awe in the face of fear of darkness, the night skies and stars things of wonder in the face of the hell of life on earth. Thus the world of the heavens was to be eventually seen as populated by good and evil spirits, later to be personified as gods and goddesses, demons and devils. In the face of instinctual fear, humans escaped into a fanciful imaginary world that was to become so strong, so powerful, and so convincing as to be eventually accepted as being as real, and as substantial, as everyday reality.

Curiously, this world of imagination is not only confined to the spiritual world but is also rampant in all scientific communities as is evidenced by the meta-physical ruminations of theoretical physics, pure mathematics, psychology, anthropology, psychology, astronomy, etc. Various attempts have been made to crack through, or escape from, the stranglehold this imaginary psychic construct has over humanity, but all have failed to go all the way (up until now). This capacity for imagination is imbibed with mother’s milk – the first stories we are told, and therefore the first world view we have, is of an ‘other-world’ of fairy stories, fictionary romance, heroism, tales of good and evil – all totally imaginary and having no relevance to the physical, actual world of people, things and events in which we live.

We are, in fact, inducted into believing the imaginary world to be primary and real, and consequently to regard the physical, actual world as secondary and illusionary. This primary imaginary world includes both a ‘real’ world-view and its associated ‘spiritual’ world-view, neither of which are actual. This obsession with imagination, belief, trust, faith and hope offers a continuing haven of denial of the facts of the Human Condition and prevents us from getting up off our bums, or up from our lotus position, and taking the necessary action that will lead to the eventual elimination of malice and sorrow from this fair planet. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

So, when things get a bit rough, or a bit strange, or a bit weird, it is just that we are ‘wiping’ the computer back to the hard disk and wondering like hell whether we can keep operating. Well, experience shows that the whole system runs so, so, so much better without imagination, without beliefs, and without emotions. It is a bit of a weird thing to do because ‘you’ are, in fact, nothing other than this program that has been installed. It is all you have known yourself to be – except in the PCE, of course, when the programmed ‘you’ has a little glitch and crashes and Bingo – you, as flesh and blood body free of fear, aggression, malice and sorrow emerge for a peek into the actual world.

And all we are trying to do is dismantle the program installed in the brain that essentially says nothing more than ‘It is Impossible to be Happy and Harmless’. There is a lot of fine print, subtle nuances and silly nonsense but that is the core message of the installed program. What a cheeky delight to prove everyone wrong ...

Actualism Homepage