|
Peter’s Correspondence on Mailing List B Correspondent No 28
RESPONDENT No 00: Hence, I think that there should always be some caution in one’s search for a more profound level of consciousness. Especially if one is involved in a particular belief structure, path, discipline, guru or whatever. And especially since it’s clear that the brain acting through the mind has managed to evolve extraordinary, immense, and elaborate powers for supporting human survival. And most especially that when we are involved in a desperate search for more meaning and purpose to our lives. Then such are these powers that under certain circumstances the mind is capable of creating the mental experiences that have been determined as those of madness or those of the spiritual. I mean the most dangerous thing about delusion is that you would not know when it was happening to you! And the more beautiful and compelling your delusion the less likely you are to be able to let it go. I would like to ask you all one question. What would you do with your lives if you were to suddenly discover that there was no such thing as enlightenment? Morality does not exist, but everyone believes it does, and acts as if it does. Maybe enlightenment might be similar? RESPONDENT: We may know that within us works a sort of moral sense which measures our individual tolerances of right and wrong, but few of us see this as an ascending scale of possible achievement because we also know (in normal life as opposed to criminal life) that morality is a matter of opinion; that is, I may sincerely feel that a particular act is both desirable and permissible, and someone else may not. (I say again, I exclude criminality as defined by law from this) This must be where morality parts company with enlightenment, because enlightenment must contain an overview of the arena where opposing moralities struggle for dominance; that is, enlightenment must contain the knowledge of what to do for the best – on a personal, national, and global scale. Or am I overvaluing enlightenment? Incidentally, current brain science has a well-supported-by-research model where sensory inputs are monitored by an organ called the amygdala which interprets and emotionally ‘colours’ all inputs before they get to the prefrontal cortex where ‘we’ live. That is, where ‘I’ is. What this means is that you don’t decide what to think or feel about anything – all that is decided by the amygdala over which you have no control whatsoever. Well, so what, I say: it’s still YOUR brain, isn’t it? PETER: I am a subscriber to the WIE list, and was very interested in your recent post to the list in response to the other respondent’s post. I have taken the liberty of writing to you privately because my posts to the lists are now being moderated by the Moderator. Which in the real world means he has stopped posting them because they were far too radical, non-spiritual and contained references to the modern empirical neuro-biological research of LeDoux and others. You may be interested in the following What is on offer is a new, non-spiritual de-programming process that completely and permanently eradicates the genetically-encoded animal survival passions that arise from the primitive reptilian brain and thus enabling one to become actually free of instinctual malice and sorrow. It beats the delusion of Enlightenment by a country mile.
PETER: You may be interested in the following Web-site, of which I am a contributor, and maybe even checking out its mailing list. Of direct relevance to your field of interest will be the section on instincts. What is on offer is a new, non-spiritual de-programming process that completely and permanently eradicates the genetically-encoded animal survival passions that arise from the primitive reptilian brain and thus enabling one to become actually free of instinctual malice and sorrow. It beats the delusion of Enlightenment by a country mile. RESPONDENT: Thank you for contacting me. It’s always good to hear from people who have more on their minds than chips, sex, and football. I must make it clear, however, that I am not in the market for any ‘non-spiritual deprogramming processes’, and I would certainly hesitate before ‘eradicating my primitive reptilian brain’ – it’s seen me through a lot of adventures! PETER: Fair enough. I did think from the tone of your posts on the mailing list that you might have doubts about the efficacy of the spiritual search in ever being able to bring peace on earth. But obviously not. Followers of Eastern religion are all looking for ‘inner’ peace and not peace on earth, which is why they have no interest at all in eliminating their instinctual malice and sorrow – the only way to actualize peace on earth. I remember a woman once asking me what I was ‘in to’ now that I had abandoned my spiritual search. I said ‘eliminating my malice and sorrow’, and she said she wouldn’t be interested. She said she liked to be able to get angry and she liked the bitter-sweet feeling of being sad. She regarded her life as a tough battle for survival and she wore her scars proudly, enjoyed licking her wounds and to be able to get in the occasional wound back. At present some 6 billion people are involved in a grim and instinctual battle for survival, sometimes fought out physically, but most often fought out psychologically and psychically. In the face of this appalling situation most people indulge in the common fantasy of believing in a better life after death for one’s spirit, soul or Atman. In Western monotheist religions, praying to and sublimating oneself to a mythical God is deemed to guarantee one a place in heaven, whereas in Eastern polytheist religions believers aspire to an Altered State of Consciousness whereby one gets to feel to be God-on-Earth, thus guaranteeing oneself a place in heaven or in Mahaparinirvana. Eastern religion is based upon the ancient belief in Tabula Rasa, the belief that humans are born innocent and only corrupted by the inherent evil of earthly corporeal existence. Thus the aim of the spiritual path is to dissociate from this earthly corporeal existence and ‘become’ a Divine spirit-only Being. ‘To be in the world but not of it’, as the current theme of the WIE list is supposedly at the moment. Despite this ancient belief in Tabula Rasa, as you know from the empirical research of LeDoux’s and others, all sentient beings are born pre-primed with certain distinguishing instincts, the main ones being fear, aggression, nurture and desire. They are blind Nature’s rather clumsy software package designed to give one a start in life and to ensure the survival of the species. While absolutely essential in the days of roaming man-eating animals, rampant disease and high infant mortality, these very same instinctual passions now threaten the very survival of the species. The genetically-encoded animal survival instincts only ‘care’ for the survival of the species – the strongest, most aggressive, the crudest. Further, blind nature gives not a fig for your happiness or well-being. We are relentlessly driven, despite our good intentions and moral and ethical codes, to act instinctually in each and every situation in our lives, and this is the very cause of all our guilt, angst and confusion. The instinctual program is located in the primitive ‘lizard’ brain and the almost instantaneous thoughtless automatic instinctual response is termed the ‘quick and dirty’ response. The primitive area of the brain makes an initial quick scan of all sensorial input and, if an instinctive reaction is required, almost instantaneously floods the body and neo-cortex with chemicals which then inevitably cause an automatic and unfettered emotional response – hence an instinctive thoughtless reaction becomes an instinctual passionate reaction. Thus, one is ‘overcome’ by feelings of despair or sadness, ‘overwhelmed’ with rage or anger, ‘compelled’ to blindly defend one’s ‘own’ and relentlessly ‘driven’ by sexual urges – regardless of the sensibleness and appropriateness of the action. Fear hobbles us with a desperate need to huddle together, belong to a group, to seek solace in tradition and the past, to cling on to whatever possessions and beliefs we hold dear to ourselves, to frantically resist change and, as death approaches, desperately seek immortality. Aggression causes us to fight for our territory, our possessions, our ‘rights’, for those we consider our ‘own’ and for our treasured beliefs. We fight for power over others lest they have power over us, or throw our lot in to fight for someone who offers us their power and protection. We lash out at others for no apparent reason and when control breaks down the innate lust to kill, maim and torture readily surfaces as is evidenced by the fact that 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone and repression, torture, domestic violence, rape, sexual abuse, persecution, corruption, murder and suicide are endemic to the Human Condition. Nurture causes us to care for, comfort and protect those we consider our ‘own’ and leads to dependency, jealousy, empathy, duty, sacrifice and needless heroism. When nurture fails within the species, as it inevitably does, we turn to animals, pets, trees, ‘endangered’ species, ‘mother’ earth and other non-reciprocating, safe objects. Desire drives us to sexual avarice and a blind urge to impregnate, procreate and reproduce ourselves – come what may. The relentless desire to accumulate, amass, covert, dominate, control and obliterate is the direct cause of poverty, corruption, hunger and famine. The Holy pretence of rising above the animal-instinctual mortal into the good, Divine and immortal is but a delusion and has failed to curb the ongoing instinctual violence and suffering of sentient human beings. The belief that instincts are a constant fixed program as in ‘you can’t change human nature’ or ‘we are feeling beings’ is forever dooming this planet to the human-made hell it really is, as directly experienced by the many, or watched in comfort and comparative safety on TV reports by the few. Contrary to popular belief, this instinctual program is not ‘hardware’ but ‘software’ and, as such, it can be deleted – thereby paving the way for the possibility of actual peace on earth. The time is now ripe and most humans, given sufficient will and intent, are now capable of weakening the chemical stranglehold that instinctual passions have on their thoughts and behaviour to such an extent that they can become virtually free of their influence. Then, and only then, is it possible that the elimination of the instinctual passions will occur through a mutation in the brain-stem causing a total and complete disconnection from their source in our primitive animal brain. RESPONDENT: Nevertheless I am interested in what’s happening in this very large and foggy field – so I will suss out the sites you mention. I’ll get back to you shortly. PETER: And I’ll reply to that post in another, as this has already got a bit long.
RESPONDENT: I’ve had a look at the site as requested, and find the content typical of a certain movement known as ‘alternative’. PETER: Indeed, it is a healthy preoccupation of the human species to continually strive for betterment. The problem up until now is that there have only been two alternatives. Either stay normal – a socially and genetically programmed participant in a grim instinctual battle for survival – or become religious/ spiritual by surrendering one’s will to a mythical God or becoming a God-man – a psychotic state of ‘self’-aggrandizement. What is now available is a third alternative. RESPONDENT: I find them rather self-absorbed and essentially complacent. PETER: The New Dark Age spiritual ‘alternative’ – those who follow Eastern pantheist religions – is to indulge in a completely self-absorbed belief-system because the total aim is self-realization, as in realizing I am Self or God by whatever name. To do so one needs not only to be complacent about the world of people, things and events where we humans actually live, but to turn away from it completely. ‘To be in the world but not of it’ is a classic description of dissociation and utterly selfish self-obsession. In the real world it is called egomania, in the spiritual world it could well be described as soul-mania. RESPONDENT: Like so many other ‘solutions’, they rest upon the promise of achieving a permanent inner state, which will enable subscribers to rise above the real and ordinary challenges of life. PETER: Yep. Transcendence literally means to rise above. What I found cute was I spent 17 years on the spiritual path before I eventually could not deny the fact that it was nothing other than olde time religion. RESPONDENT: In my view such a state is only obtainable via psychosis – be it mild, or severe. PETER: Yep. From what I have read schizophrenics, for example, display a wide range of symptoms but the common ones are hallucinations, delusions, blunted emotions, disordered thinking and a withdrawal from reality. Schizophrenia is a psychotic illness, an aberration from what is taken to be normal, but many of the symptoms are common to all humans to varying degrees. The paranoid type of schizophrenia, which usually arises later in life than the other types, is characterized primarily by delusions of persecution and grandeur combined with unrealistic, illogical thinking, often accompanied by hallucinations. It does seem that these definitions fit well with the symptoms exhibited by many fervent spiritual/ religious followers. When I was a spiritual believer I was completely blinded to the fact that in my father’s generation in the West, anyone claiming to be God-on-earth or God-realized would most probably be interred in a mental institution – and yet nowadays, with Eastern religion in fashion, such people are regarded as the wise ones and worshipped as such. RESPONDENT: In short, what is being marketed as actual freedom is really actual dissociation – a symptom of mental disorder. PETER: Nothing is being marketed. I just thought you might be interested in a practical method whereby anyone can diminish his or her own instinctual malice and sorrow to the point of complete eradication. You probably read the web-site as being spiritual in nature because that has been the only alternative on offer so far. It took me months of reading and following the discussions before I overcame my cognitive dissonance. RESPONDENT: These ‘solutions’ are easily recognizable because none of them address any other issue but the individual’s state of mind, and all of them assert or imply that the rest of humanity are ‘asleep’, ‘conditioned’ or, in this case, ‘controlled by the primitive reptilian brain’. PETER: It is clear to me that the next major issue facing humanity is actualizing peace on earth – to bring to an end the horrendous violence and appalling suffering that typifies the human condition. Over 160,000,000 people were killed in wars in the last century, over one billion affected by warfare and an estimated 40,000,000 people killed themselves in suicides. For religious/ spiritual believers this carnage is the work of the Devil, for others it is all but an illusion or Maya. More and more, humans are beginning to debunk these puerile beliefs – the Net is an invaluable tool for this – and we now even discovering that malice and sorrow are genetically-encoded animal survival passions. Actualism is a newly developed method specifically targeted to eliminating these redundant brutish primitive passions and is available to everyone and anyone who is interested in being free of malice and sorrow. RESPONDENT: Such elitist claims are the well-tried mechanisms of induced dissociation as practiced by all cults – and are about a retreat from reality, not a deeper understanding of it. PETER: Whereas actualism is brand-new, non-spiritual, down-to-earth and firmly rooted in empirical scientific method. Reality sucks badly – peace on earth is an impossibility while humans stubbornly insist on remaining instinctually driven beings – and religion/ spirituality is mere escapist fairy tale nonsense. Actualism is about being happy and harmless which means actively ridding oneself of the animal instinctual passions that are the very source of human malice and sorrow. Actualism is about peace on earth, not an inner peace or a peace after death, as in R.I.P. RESPONDENT: The danger of such dissociative thinking is that it enables you to discard responsibility for undesirable events or personal confrontations, which arise due to your actions. It enables you to say to yourself, ‘Oh well, he/she/they are still controlled by the reptilian brain, so how can he/she/they understand me?’ PETER: I can see your point of view but it is based on the common assumption that ‘you can’t change human nature’, which means there will never be peace on earth. When I discovered just how deeply cynical this viewpoint or belief was I started to run the question ‘why not’. The frightening answer was that if I wanted peace on earth, then it was up to me to irrevocably and permanently change in order to become completely happy and utterly harmless. How could I go on blaming others when I still nursed malice and sorrow in my bosom particularly now that a method of eliminating it was available. It is called taking responsibility for one’s own malice and sorrow – not denying it or avoiding it by practicing transcendence. RESPONDENT: This is dangerous because it leads to social isolation of the individual or the group – and eventually to a psychologically and socially degenerative condition from which the ‘alternative idea’ cannot rescue you. PETER: Yep. My original attraction to the spiritual world was the promise of freedom peace and happiness and that included peace on earth – not after death in an imaginary ‘other world’. After 17 years I discovered that not only did I have my head stuck in the clouds, but that I was getting to the stage where I didn’t give a fig about what was happening here on earth where we humans actually live. In my spiritual pursuits I had done nothing other than drop my real-world identity and cunningly adopted a new, holier than thou, spiritual identity. I was, however, so indoctrinated and consumed by this new identity that it took me months and months to even begin to entertain, let alone understand, that there might be another freedom other than the spurious spirit-ual freedom, which is an imagined freedom for one’s imaginary spirit or soul. RESPONDENT: I find all this rather unhealthy, and advocate engagement with the world rather than attempted separation from it. PETER: Yep. The spiritual pundits, teachers and Gurus have had at least 3,500 years to prove their case and we are still no closer to peace on earth. RESPONDENT: I suggest that people who are attracted to the easy and selfish solution advertised on this site would be better off in the long term if they found a focus of interest outside themselves. PETER: You missed the whole thrust of what is on offer on the site which is perfectly understandable given the overwhelming grip that religion/ spiritual thinking has on the human mind. This programming is not only social imbibed and peer reinforced but it is at core genetically encoded. RESPONDENT: By this, I mean the ordinary endeavour of getting better at doing a job; having relationships, and doing what you can to further your worthy cause of choice. PETER: I spent 35 years involved in these pursuits and when the first two proved unfulfilling I set my course, like many others in my generation, on peace on earth – bringing an end to all wars and living together in peace and harmony. By the end of my spiritual years I finally realized that peace on earth is not even on the religious/ spiritual agenda and no religious/ spiritual people live in peace and harmony either as a group, let alone with one other person. The challenge I took up was that if I could not live with at least one other person in utter peace and harmony, then life on earth was indeed a sick joke. You can’t get more down-to-earth than that. RESPONDENT: When you think about it clearly, the belief that you have personally found the final solution to all troubles of the human condition is outrageously vain, isn’t it? PETER: Only if you believe you can’t change human nature or that the troubles of the human condition are God’s work that we mere mortals shouldn’t interfere with. Your scientists are about to try to eliminate schizophrenia – or at least bring it to normal levels – and many religious/ spiritual fundamentalists who vainly believe themselves to be the Chosen Ones will no doubt resist any practical betterment as they have always done and always will. An increasing proportion of the human population is enjoying comfort, safety, leisure and pleasure the likes of which has never, ever, existed before and these advancements have been achieved by human beings – not mythical Gods or vain, deluded God-men. If peace on earth is to be actualized on earth it is human beings who will do it – the ‘you’s’ and ‘me’s’ of the world – flesh and blood human beings. I can see from a spiritual point of view that daring to eliminate our cherished instinctual passions will be seen as vanity, or megalomaniacal or even Evil. The Actual Freedom Trust website already contains correspondence documenting hundreds of similar objections and all are answered in full. RESPONDENT: There’s so much more to do in this world than focus obsessively upon yourself. Look outward. PETER: What I came to discover was that ‘who’ I think and feel I am is in fact a psychological and psychic entity who is an alien entity, a parasite who dwells within the flesh and blood body thinking and feeling it is running the show. ‘I’ am lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning and ‘I’ am forever cut off from and isolated from the perfection and purity of the actual physical world. To seek an imaginary connection and feeling of unity via spiritual practices is but to cop-out and move even further inward. I’ll leave you with a bit of non-spiritual pragmatic from the introduction to Actual Freedom from the web-site. You may have already read it but you may have missed it as the site is very extensive in its study of the human condition. ‘The modern scientific empirical discoveries of neuro-biology and genetics, with regard to the human brain and how it functions, have revealed two very fascinating aspects –
It was never my intention when I wrote to you to have a scholarly one on one debate with you, nor sell you anything. I was twigged by something you wrote on the WIE list and just wanted to let you know, as a fellow human being, that there is something new on offer. I was also particularly interested that you appeared to work in the field of empirical science and would have welcomed some feedback on the writings on instincts on our Web-site. * RESPONDENT: I looked up LeDoux’s work on the net, and am consumed with curiosity about how you propose to use this research to effect a disconnection or amendment of the amygdala’s emotional input from brain function – as you described. PETER: The ‘how’ is described extensively on The Actual Freedom Trust website but it will take effort not to see it in spiritual terms and summarily lob it in with the tried and failed traditional approaches. Perhaps an easier way to satisfy your curiosity would be to listen in on the mailing list for a while and see if what is being discussed interests you. I think your curiosity about the ‘troubles of the human condition’ is wasted on the WIE list where any attempt to have a sensible conversation that follows a thread, or sticks to a topic, always wilts. A vital interest in, and concern about, the human condition is diametrically opposite to an interest in spiritual/religious attempts to transcend the material world. They are two different worlds – one physical, the other meta-physical. RESPONDENT: Incidentally, my scientists here at the Institute are about to embark on the biggest Australian amygdala research project – but aiming to discover its role in schizophrenia. PETER: No doubt if your scientists provide more evidence that confirms the amygdala’s function as a quick-scan, automatic-instinctual trigger that releases chemical flows into the body and neo-cortex, the research will be invaluable. Given that the amygdala appears to be the trigger for the chemicals that give rise to psychological and psychic fear, aggression, nurture and desire, the research should contribute to better ways to keep people within the range of what is considered normal – as in normally aggressive or resentful and normally sad or depressed. But no doubt, exactly as is happening in other fields of medical research, the emphasis in investigation and treatment of neurosis and psychosis will gradually turn from coping and ‘normalizing’ – as in reducing the more extreme symptoms – to finding better fixes and cures and thus eventually towards seeking elimination. Actualism provides the non-medically intrusive, do-it-yourself, method to completely eradicate one’s own instinctual malice and sorrow. Good hey ... As John Lennon sang –
The next 30 years are going to be fascinating indeed ... Good talking to you ...
RESPONDENT: In short, what is being marketed as actual freedom is really actual dissociation – a symptom of mental disorder. PETER: Nothing is being marketed. I just thought you might be interested in a practical method whereby anyone can diminish his or her own instinctual malice and sorrow to the point of complete eradication. You probably read the web-site as being spiritual in nature because that has been the only alternative on offer so far. It took me months of reading and following the discussions before I overcame my cognitive dissonance. RESPONDENT: Thanks for the detailed reply, and forgive my use of the word ‘marketing’. I have been in Marketing via advertising all my life, so I see all communications as marketing. PETER: If you mean communication as in marketing a public front or façade for what is really going on underneath or backstage, then I understand what you mean. We have all been socially conditioned to present a nice image to the world and to suppress or deny of our brutish animal passions that lurk beneath. It is what makes for what is known as ‘the thin veneer of civilization’. RESPONDENT: Art, for example, has always been advertising – either for priests, aristocrats, wealthy merchants, or the artist’s personal vision. PETER: I was trained in art – architecture to be precise. It took me years to free myself of the notion that ‘my’ whims and ‘my’ vision was the most important thing on earth. RESPONDENT: This is a sort of catch-22 situation. It reminds me of a discussion where I was advocating that everything people did was based on the essential competitive nature of humankind. My interlocutor disagreed, so I said, ‘See? You’re being competitive right now.’ PETER: The other great communication stopper is the spiritual dimwitticism RESPONDENT: I’m a great one for enthusiasms and manic drive, and am never happier than when obsessed. I’m obsessed right now with doing a painted nude portrait of a friend who has had a double mastectomy. Painting-wise, it’s a helluva challenge – but it’s improving my oil technique no end. PETER: Yes, I can relate to your enthusiasm and obsession. Having happily abandoned the nonsense of the spiritual world and its ‘inner’ freedom some four years ago, I am now happily obsessed with ridding myself of every last skerrick of malice and sorrow. Same drive, different interests. RESPONDENT: Like you, I hope this enthusiasm will be sustained and build itself into a sequence: an oeuvre; something more than a momentary blip on the cosmic radar. But I remember other enthusiasms, and how they stayed their time, faded, and became just another experience to add to the memory cakemix. We would all like to bake that cake one day, but that would mean not having the mix, wouldn’t it? PETER: It sounds as though you have got the gist of what is needed in order to become actually free of malice and sorrow as opposed to merely thinking and feeling you are, as do the ‘holier than thou’ religious/ spiritual disciples, pundits and Godmen. RESPONDENT: That’s what I feel about the WIE group: they’re all trying to find a way to turn their untidy pile of ingredients into a nice, neat, final cake called enlightenment. My feeling about this is that if they succeed it will only be a delusion cake – like those heavily iced and spicy confections of the orthodox religions. It’s okay, though. Whatever they believe is okay by me. It’s just that history shows that all these cosmologies and convictions have a use-by date – i.e. they are not true. PETER: Any belief, by its very nature, is a denial of facts and actuality. RESPONDENT: I looked up ‘amygdala’ on my search engine not long ago, and was surprised to find how many ‘developmental’ groups had picked up on this recent neuro-scientific discovery, and were advocating various ways of affecting a modification of its function in order (presumably) to achieve perpetual happiness. PETER: As you may have observed, all religions have a chameleon-like ability to eventually clip-on or adapt any discoveries into their belief-system. The one I find real cute is that Jesus was Enlightened, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was sent by his father to do a job of instilling everlasting guilt in a benighted Humanity. RESPONDENT: My instinct (maybe one of the automatic functions you wish to eliminate?) tells me that it’s a red herring, but I’ve no objection to anyone else exploring the possibilities. PETER: For me, I observed that my intuition or gut-feeling was always ‘self’-centred and was always a fear-based guestimate, as accurate or not as most guesses. When I realized this, it gave me fuel to totally eliminate fear from my life. RESPONDENT: What I find interesting about the concept is that your amygdala is monitoring your inputs about itself, and loading them with emotional tags in favour of the ‘Actual Freedom’ idea. Hmmmm, things get tricky when you start fooling with the brain, don’t they? PETER: This assumption is predicated on the notion that the primitive reptilian brain is capable of intelligent thinking and sensible reflection whereas there is no evidence of this at all in any of the animal species. Actualism is a method of freeing intelligence from the insidious influence of the crude instinctual animal passions. It’s so simple and glaringly obvious that eliminating the influence of the instinctual animal passions is the only way to bring peace on earth and bring an end to human suffering – so dauntingly obvious, that people will do anything, including turning back to believing in ancient mythical Gods and spirits, rather than acknowledge the fact. RESPONDENT: If this was a sci-fi story, I’d characterize the ‘lizard brain’ as definitely not wanting to be eliminated. After all, it contains about 99% of all human evolution! PETER: Contrary to popular belief, evolutionary development is not a gradual imperceptible process but has always occurred by mutations as an adaptation to changed circumstances. Until the emergence of intelligence in the human species, these mutations meant the strongest and most brutish survived. It is clearly time, for those who are interested, to rid intelligence of the brutish blind passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. RESPONDENT: So it works out a strategy for survival (ain’t that what it’s supposed to be best at?) which includes encouraging the delusion that it is being eliminated. It achieves this by influencing the amygdala to tag ‘actual freedom’ inputs approvingly – thereby providing a jolt of pleasure to the prefrontal cortex every time ‘actual freedom’ activities are pursued. The poor old pre-frontals can then go on believing the lizard’s power is vanquished, while the beast itself remains the back-room power-broker it has always been. Naturally, Bruce Willis would play the lead, and the lizard would sometimes make itself all-too-clearly manifest as a hallucination which scares the girlfriend – played by Jennifer Lopez. PETER: The prerequisite for being interested in actualism is to abandon one’s cynicism and re-activate one’s naiveté, a seemingly impossible task for those who have been involved in the spiritual world for years and have become aware by experience of its perennial failure to deliver the goods. Seemingly it is an equally impossible task for those who have devoted their lives to changing human nature and have become aware of the perennial failure of any real-world idealism to deliver the goods. RESPONDENT: I don’t know about eliminating malice and sorrow, either. It’s easy to say the two words and brand them as undesirable but, psychologically, they both have a lot of other qualities sort of dangling off them. Sorrow is closely aligned to empathy, for example; and Malice to the juices of anger and determination: the iron in the soul that gets things done. PETER: In the grim instinctual battle for survival that passes for civilization, it is important to maintain the feelings of empathy and compassion as a balance for indifference and selfishness – perpetuating an endless cycle of good and bad, right and wrong, feuds and conflicts, wars and suicides. No wonder most people turn, in utter despair to praying for some fairy-tale God for succor.
PETER: You seem to have got the gist of actualism. That’s exactly what we are talking about – throwing the baby out with the bathwater. To train the baby such that it believes it is God is madness in the extreme ... (picture adapted from P. Livingston, The Flacco Files, Allen & Unwin 1999) RESPONDENT: Certainly, what I’m doing at the Institute was initiated by the outrage I felt when my son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and became subject to the woefully inadequate services and medications then available. With this energy input, I have helped to create a medical research organization, which did not exist before. Life has a way of suddenly biting you deep enough to blow away all delusions. Pity we have to pay so high a price for that. PETER: Yeah. I was tootling along, comfortably numb, being a spiritual devotee when my 13 year old son died. It was enough to jolt me out of my complacency and to really begin my search for freedom peace and happiness. I soon found that the first part of this search was to acknowledge the innate hypocrisy and inherent narcissism of my maintaining any spiritual/ religious/ mystical beliefs whatsoever RESPONDENT: Well, best of luck with it, Peter. I’ll pop into the site now and again to see how you’re going. PETER: Actualism is in its infancy but it does work and this means that scepticism and cynicism as well as moral and ethical objections will eventually wilt. Any practical empirical discoveries have fittingly had to run the gauntlet of peer review and most of them have been fought tooth and nail by the shamans, witchdoctors, healers, priests, Gurus, Popes and God-men. You will probably find you will go through the same process of being confronted by your peer’s scepticism, conservatism, cynicism and outright denial of facts in your attempts to find a way to curtail the instinctual passion excesses that are at the root of most neurotic and psychotic conditions. So you can imagine the fuss that a process that eliminates these passions entirely will cause, but peace on earth is such a prize that eventually actualism will win out. But I’m just teasing you again, as you may have guessed. I liked some of what you were writing on the WIE list and assumed you might be interested in something that was non-spiritual. I also assumed you might have had a scientific background as the instinct section of The Actual Freedom Trust website could certainly benefit from a good dose of peer review. Wrong on both counts, but who knows what the future brings. Despite being censored from the WIE list, I am still subscribed and I will remain interested in what you post, so I’ll be able to see how you are going, as it were.
RESPONDENT: Thanks for the detailed comment. PETER: It is always a pleasure to be able to write to someone about how to become free of the human condition. I get to not only debunk a few beliefs and present some facts but I also have another opportunity to tell a fellow human being that there is a now a way out of the cyclic mess that is the human condition ... and that it works. RESPONDENT: Watch out you don’t become impregnable. PETER: Your concern would be valid if it was me merely flogging a belief or spinning a spin, proselytizing or philosophizing or setting up a cyber stall to sell a concept or ideal, which is not the case. Actualism is a tried and tested method of totally eliminating one’s personal malice and sorrow. There is no Guru to follow, there are no disciples or followers, just a web-site to read for information, a method to apply that allows you to make your own investigations and discoveries, and a mailing list to talk to others who are interested in peace on earth. Actualism is firmly based upon fact and the method works, i.e. it has been verified by repeated experiment as giving the same result. Actualism has been subject to extensive and ongoing peer review and all objections and questions have been met fairly and squarely and have been recorded on the web-site so as to be freely available to whoever is interested. Actualism has nothing to hide and no wheelbarrow to push – other than actualizing peace on earth by bringing an end to human malice and sorrow. You could well call actualism impregnable ...
Peter’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer |
