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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 10
Continued on from Mailing List ‘B’: No. 40 RESPONDENT: Richard, I’ve been perusing the actual freedom website on and off for a while now and want to thank you for making it available on the web. RICHARD: Welcome to the actual freedom mailing list ... I am always pleased when the writings of an actual freedom from the human condition catch somebody’s attention. RESPONDENT: I have many questions, but would like to start with one which I find most pressing. You wrote how the imagination is no longer active in your brain and that if you were to draw a picture of a cow you would not be able to imagine it, but would just start drawing and gradually it would take form on paper. But from my observations, thought requires mental visual imagery, i.e.; in order to write this letter I am graphically visualising mental concepts and visually recalling data relevant to what I wish to convey, before forming the sentences I type. RICHARD: Okay ... when I start a sentence I have no means of knowing in advance what will transpire, let alone how it will end. All I need to know is the topic and the subject matter unfolds of its own accord. I do have a reliable and repeatable format and style, which has developed over the years, so it is not an ad hoc or chaotic meandering. It is all very easy. RESPONDENT: I am a designer by profession. RICHARD: I used to make a living as a practising artist (as well as being a qualified art teacher) so I can relate to your profession more than just a little bit. RESPONDENT: Could you please elaborate on how the brain can think without visually imaging, or perhaps I have misunderstood what you mean? Your time is most appreciated. RICHARD: Oh, no ... you have not misunderstood at all. You must be referring to this passage:
The brain thinks perfectly well without ‘visually imaging’ ... much, much better than any ‘I’ can do. It all started over 20 years ago when the ‘I’ who was made a living as an artist ... ‘my’ greatest work came when ‘I’ disappeared and the painting painted itself in what is sometimes known as an ‘aesthetic experience’. This is the difference between art and craft – and ‘I’ was very good as a craftsman – but craft became art only when ‘I’ was not present. All art is initially a representation and, as such, is a reflection funnelled by the artist so that he/she can express what they are experiencing in order to see for themselves – and show to others – what is going on ‘behind the scenes’ as it were. However, when one is fully engrossed in the act of creating art – wherein the painting paints itself – the art-form takes on a life of its own and ceases to be a representation during the event. It is its own actuality. One can only stand in amazement and wonder – which is not to negate the very essential patiently acquired skills and expertise – and this marvelling is what was experienced back when I was a normal person. It was this magical way of creativity that led ‘me’ into this whole investigation of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. ‘I’ desired to live my whole life like these utter moments of artistic creation. ‘I’ wanted my life to live itself just like the paintings painted themselves and consequently here I am now ... and what I am (what not who) is the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me ... this is a direct experiencing of the actual in all its pristine freshness. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain ... which is an indirect experiencing of the actual (through a translucent veneer of what is called ‘reality’). As the perfection of the purity of the actual is inaccessible, the intuitive/imaginative facility is required to enhance experience ... an ersatz picture, in other words. An aesthetic experience is somewhat akin to a pure consciousness experience (PCE).
RICHARD: I used to make a living as a practising artist (as well as being a qualified art teacher) so I can relate to your profession more than just a little bit. RESPONDENT: Wonderful, then you would be refreshingly unimpressed by this precisely dexterous, crafted hand, trained since childhood and many years in advertising illustrations. RICHARD: Definitely ... what was called ‘graphic art’ was a compulsory subject in my first semester at art college and I did the minimum possible so as to qualify and move on to far, far better things (typical snobbery has the ‘fine arts’ students scorning ‘graphic arts’ students). Although that was over a quarter of a century ago ... with the excellent computer programs these days I am sure much of the then drudgery in design and illustration has disappeared, no? RESPONDENT: I too much prefer loose creative unbound art, but these long lasting Hebbian connection, do not seem to quit, no matter what I believe or who or what is steering the ship. RICHARD: Oh? Are you referring to what is known as ‘The Hebbian Learning Rule’ first proposed by Mr. D. O. Hebb in 1949? If so, I know nothing about it worthy of comment other than what is learned can be unlearned and what is done can be undone. The neural pathways are not hard-wired ... old connections can dissolve, dissipate, die if judiciously targeted and new, healthy networks formed. There is nobody ‘steering the ship’ here ... free will is a myth: the situation and the circumstances dictate, each moment again, the optimum course of action. What usually happens is that ‘I’ step in – albeit a split-second later – and arrogate authorship by claiming the organic decision-making process for being ‘my’ own decision. There is nobody in charge of the universe. * RICHARD: When one is fully engrossed in the act of creating art – wherein the painting paints itself – the art-form takes on a life of its own and ceases to be a representation during the event. It is its own actuality. One can only stand in amazement and wonder – which is not to negate the very essential patiently acquired skills and expertise – and this marvelling is what was experienced back when I was a normal person. It was this magical way of creativity that led ‘me’ into this whole investigation of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. ‘I’ desired to live my whole life like these utter moments of artistic creation. RESPONDENT: You might then enjoy Stanislaw Kors. www.colors.co.za/kors/ RICHARD: Umm ... no art has any effect whatsoever upon me these days, no matter who the artist. Consequently, all I see is the structural, technical, theoretical/philosophical and culturally aesthetic qualities ... and looking at the work of Mr. Stanislaw Kors (and here comes the critique) I was immediately struck by the fact that in most of his paintings the focal point is centralised – it is particularly obvious looking at the ‘thumbnail’ page – which makes for static, rather than dynamic viewing (the eye has nowhere to roam, to feast, to savour). One could crop a quarter of the canvas off the paintings, around the edges, and very little would be lost from the main event. Thus the technique seems to be inspired by ... um ... graphic design rather than ‘lose creative unbound art’ and the images are tightly controlled, contrived and facile. I am sure the ‘dreamscape’ imagery (which he calls ‘infra-reality’) is appealing, however, in a science-fiction come new age sort of way ... with hints of ovum-like planetary birth and/or rebirth floating amidst pastel blue-mauve-pink ‘clouds’ in some escapist ‘other’ or ‘parallel’ universe where all is bright and beautiful. The artist does not appear to like the world where 6.0 billion peoples live. * RICHARD: ‘I’ wanted my life to live itself just like the paintings painted themselves and consequently here I am now ... and what I am (what not who) is the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me ... this is a direct experiencing of the actual in all its pristine freshness. RESPONDENT: This seems most sensible to me. I’ve always experienced a strong feeling of wonder and joy at the marvels of existence, what with these keen aesthetic artist’s eyes, but there has always been a frustrating feeling that something is in the way of purely experiencing that. Some sort of gap. Now with the help of your brave push into actuality, I’m beginning to see just what that gap may be. This imaginary ‘I’ claiming this moment of being alive as ‘it’s’ feeling, then this flesh and blood body is robbed. RICHARD: Yes, there are three I’s altogether ... but only one is actual. I have been here for fifty three years: it is just that there was this dualistic loudmouth inhabiting this body, arrogating responsibility where it is not called for, such that I could not get a word in edgeways. Not that I minded, of course, it was ‘he’ who suffered, not me. I have been having a ball all along. * RICHARD: Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain ... which is an indirect experiencing of the actual (through a translucent veneer of what is called ‘reality’). As the perfection of the purity of the actual is inaccessible, the intuitive/imaginative facility is required to enhance experience ... an ersatz picture, in other words. RESPONDENT: Yes exactly. At the moment I’m reading Joseph LeDoux’s book ‘The Emotional Brain’, very interesting, but it is Win Wenger’s book ‘The Einstein Factor’ which prompted my question on imagination, coupled with my interest in creative thought (Win Wenger is an advocate of Image Streaming as a method to increase ones intelligence). In his book he gives these examples; Tesla’s Gift. • [quote]: ‘1. The intensity of Tesla’s Image Stream appeared to stimulate his genius. Among his many talents, Tesla possessed the remarkable ability to visualize his inventions in minute detail before even beginning to write them down. He would mentally build a new device part by part and test-run it, all in his imagination. So accurate were Tesla’s mental blueprints that he could diagnose a problem with a machine by the way it ran in his mind. ‘It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop’, he wrote. ‘I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, By this means, Tesla developed all the basic mechanisms of today’s global electric power grid, including high-voltage transformers, long-distance transmission lines, hydroelectric generators, and alternating current’. • 2. ‘A Baseball Genius: Some years ago, I visited a friend in Chicago. My friend’s son was trying out for the high school baseball team but feared he wouldn’t make the cut because of his poor batting average. I worked with the boy for about an hour, employing many of the techniques that you will learn to use later in this book. In the course of our session, the boy discovered that he had the greatest success when he imagined a tiny flyspeck on the baseball and aimed his bat at that flyspeck rather than at the ball itself. This flyspeck gave him just the extra focus he needed to connect with the ball. It may seem a trivial insight, but its effect on the boy’s game was astonishing. In baseball, a .250 to .300 batting average is considered quite good. But during the first ten games of the season, this boy batted .800! He not only made the team but went on to be named Most Valuable Player for both the team and the league for that year. In a single one-hour session, we had succeeded in identifying a technique that made this boy a baseball genius’. • 3. ‘Genius does seem to be linked to the intensity of our subconscious imagery, but to be effective we must strike a balance. In striving to gain access on demand to intense and vivid imagery, we must also preserve the ability to squelch it at appropriate times. This balance is best achieved through a controlled process like Image Streaming, which allows us to choose the time and place of our imaging and to remain completely conscious and alert throughout the session’ [endquote]. RICHARD: If one is going to accept the status-quo for what it is and ‘make the best of a bad situation’ then such concentrated and focussed effort as described above would probably be the better way to go. However, the way freedom works is this simple: Back when I used to be able to visualise, what would happen is that it is all mapped out, planned in advance, and all that was left was a ‘colouring-in-by-numbers’ style of painting and/or drawing and/or whatever. All the creativity was confined to mental-emotional imagery department – a dream-like fantasy – which rarely, if ever, translated into pen and paper or paint and canvas ... with the resultant frustration in being unable to manifest the vision into actuality. The main reason was that the mental picture was not constrained by the physical medium and thus compromises inevitably creep in, even early in the piece. One is then left with trying to force actuality into fitting the fancy ... with less than desirable results. What I discovered, when the ‘painting painted itself’, was that actuality ruled the roost, as it were, and magically manifested perfection ... such as to leave me, as I remarked (further above) standing in amazement and wonder, marvelling at this magical creativity. Modesty – especially false modesty – disappeared along with pride ... ‘I’ was not doing this. I saw and understood that we humans were trying to make life fit our petty demands; our pathetic dreams; our desperate schemes ... and who am ‘I’ to know better than this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe how to do it. Because all the while, perfection was abounding all about ... magically unfolding, each moment again, if only one would give oneself permission to ‘let go the controls’ and allow it all to happen of its own accord. Again, none of this is to negate the very essential patiently acquired skills and expertise ... otherwise one is as a leaf blowing in the wind (‘think not of the morrow’ and all that nonsense). Initially I described it as ‘being like a child again but with adult sensibilities’. Of course, time would show me that being ‘child-like’ is not it ... but that was ‘my’ beginning explanation back then when seeking to understand. Back in 1980 ‘I’ looked at the stars one night and temporarily came to my senses: there are galaxies exploding/imploding (or whatever) all throughout the physical infinitude where an immeasurable quantity of matter is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time and ‘I’ – puny, pathetic ‘I’ in an ant-like-in-comparison and very vulnerable 6’2’’ flesh and blood body – disapprove of all this? That is, ‘I’ call all this a ‘sick joke’, or whatever depreciative assessment? And further: so what if ‘I’ were to do an about-face and graciously approve? What difference would that make to the universe? Zilch. Ergo: ‘I’, with all my abysmal opinions, theories, concepts, values, principles, judgements and so on, am not required at all ... ‘I’ am a supernumerary. ‘I’ am redundant; ‘I’ can retire; fold ‘my’ hand; pack in the game, die, dissolve, disappear, disintegrate, depart, vamoose, vanish – whatever – and life would manage quite well, thank you, without ‘me’ ... a whole lot better, in fact, as ‘I’ am holding up the works from functioning smoothly. ‘I’ am not needed ... ‘my’ services are no longer required. RESPONDENT: As an aside, I also thought you might be interested in the following, which (after reading about your ‘30th October 1992 curious event’) perhaps helps me understand why the imaging faculty (so connected to feelings) is no longer active in your neo-cortex. • [quote]: ‘A Synesthetic World Neurologist Richard Cytowic has spent years studying synesthetes, people who are born fully synesthetic. Such people may see golden balls when hearing a vibraphone or a glass column when they taste spearmint. Some feel geometric shapes pressing against their skin on tasting certain foods or even twist their bodies involuntarily into characteristic shapes in response to hearing specific words. This condition brings to mind the splashes, lines, and colours the Russian journalist Shereshevesky (the man who remembered everything) saw when certain words were pronounced. Shereshevesky was, in fact, a classic synesthete. While conducting a radioactive brain scan on one synesthetic subject, Cytowic was shocked to see a wholesale diversion of blood flow from the cerebral cortex as the man entered a synesthetic experience. ‘We have never, never seen anything like it’, Cytowic later remarked. The cortex, or ‘grey matter’ is usually considered the most human part of the brain, responsible for higher intellectual thought. Because blood was diverted from the cortex during synesthesia, Cytowic hypothesized that commingling of the senses must occur deep in the limbic system, the instinctive portion of the brain that gives rise to primitive drives such as hunger, emotion, and sexual desire. In nonsynesthetic people, the cortex acts as a Squelcher, suppressing synesthesia and keeping it safely corralled in the limbic brain. On a conscious level, most of us therefore perceive sharp boundaries between the senses. But our unconscious minds apparently function in a fully synesthetic world’ [endquote]. I find it quite viable as you say, that ‘thought needs no ‘I’ to operate and function’, but I cannot help but wonder whether there isn’t a skerrick of imagination which also needs no ‘I’ to operate and function? RICHARD: No ... if there is a ‘a skerrick of imagination’ then there is guaranteed to be a skerrick of ‘I’ lurking about somewhere cunningly disguised as ‘naturalness’ or ‘spontaneity’ or ‘unaffectedness’ or whatever. Guaranteed. RESPONDENT: Is all imagery connected to the limbic system, to feeling, as the synesthetes above? RICHARD: All imagery is a product of the imaginative/intuitive facility contained within the psyche – the affective faculty – born of the instinctual passions. When the instinctual passions are deleted, the entire psyche itself ceases to exist ... thus the imaginative apparatus also disappears in toto. RESPONDENT: Could it be that there are non feeling images, that we create an image of sorts, in our mind for each and every thought? RICHARD: There is no such thing as ‘non-feeling images’ ... without the affective faculty there is no visualising, no forming images, no picturing, no ‘seeing in my mind’s eye’, no intuiting, no feeling, no envisioning, no falling into a reverie, no daydreaming, no conceptualising, no envisaging in any way, shape or form. There is only the magical unfolding of the actual ... actuality is far, far better than anything ‘I’ could imagine, dream, contrive or concoct. RESPONDENT: Still reading through your web site, most appreciated, and having a great laugh about the Konrad dialogue. RICHARD: I thoroughly enjoyed my dialogues with Konrad (for all his preoccupation with logical principles) because he dared to have experiences that pushed the envelope more than a little (possibly dangerously) for him. Those conversations were about two years ago ... he still lobs an E-Mail into my mail box, every six months or so, which is a copy of an exchange he is having with someone else to whom he is giving his latest understanding/explanation of the ‘Richard’s Metaphysics Of Actualism’ that he has invented. As nothing fundamental has changed I have not been inclined to respond. It is all good fun ... and very informative.
RICHARD: I used to make a living as a practising artist (as well as being a qualified art teacher) so I can relate to your profession more than just a little bit. RESPONDENT: Wonderful, then you would be refreshingly unimpressed by this precisely dexterous, crafted hand, trained since childhood and many years in advertising illustrations. RICHARD: Definitely ... what was called ‘graphic art’ was a compulsory subject in my first semester at art college and I did the minimum possible so as to qualify and move on to far, far better things (typical snobbery has the ‘fine arts’ students scorning ‘graphic arts’ students). RESPONDENT: Ahh, how well I remember the tyranny of abstract art, and how those of us who could draw well were ridiculed, so we sent our skills underground for 20 years. Hehe those days are over. But abstract art brought forth much needed freedom to the art world and the new freer music paralleled its emergence. Artists no longer had to have the ‘patience to acquire the skills and expertise’ necessary to become a graphic artist. It was a great break through though and allowed expressive art to be released from the graphic side of the craft – to a certain degree. Those skills which required far more than a semester, years in fact of brain-hand co-ordination and preferably before adulthood whilst still in state of awe and wonderment about everything visual, were negated – temporarily. RICHARD: My comment was no reflection upon a person’s ability to ‘draw well’ – illustrators are exceptionally talented in the skills of their craft – but rather a comment on the restrictions of the advertising/ illustrating medium itself in that there is minimum room for personal exploration and expression in conforming to a client’s wishes to promote a product with a catchy illustration nor any creativity in the precision required by the very format itself. Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding about this ‘first semester’ reference of mine ... it took me five years of intensive study and practice – imitating and copying the work of acknowledged masterworks – with much experimentation through trial and error in order to acquire the necessary skill and expertise. Please, it was your ‘precisely dexterous, crafted hand, trained since childhood and many years in advertising illustrations’ phrase I was responding to – the advertising medium itself – and not the expertise required. Also, I was referring to graphic art as in ‘advertising illustrations’ and not the ‘abstract art’ of fine art (‘advertising illustrations’ are a far cry from the oh-so-expressive ‘abstract art’ of the twentieth century). Even so, I can relate to your description of ‘the of tyranny of abstract art’ ... although I would contend that it was not ‘freedom’ but licence. In my experience – and in my observation of other art students – one first needed to master the ability to draw and paint well to the nth degree before one could successfully move on to abstracting ... otherwise the result is but a self-indulgent mess (and that pretentious ‘expressiveness’ masquerading as abstract art was the dominant paradigm in college). The same presumably applies to all the arts – and particularly the performing arts – including music (à la Ms. Yoko Ono or Mr. John Cage for example). * RICHARD: Although that was over a quarter of a century ago ... with the excellent computer programs these days I am sure much of the then drudgery in design and illustration has disappeared, no? RESPONDENT: On the contrary Richard, design and illustration is not a drudgery at all to a competent graphic artist. Anyone (unless retarded) can learn computer skills, but the dexterous hand and keen eye for composition is still indispensable in the world of computer graphics, hence the high incomes. RICHARD: Indeed, yet the ‘drudgery’ I was referring to was nothing other than the tedious filling-in of many areas of flat colour – computers flood such areas in an instant – and not the overall ‘composition’ itself. RESPONDENT: Artists know that everyone is an unconscious artist and that the average human eye is most astute in its perceptual tactility and insatiable in its ‘roaming, feasting and savouring’ and this has kept the world of illustration, in this crafty universe, on it’s toes indeed. RICHARD: Sure ... although this vindication of ‘advertising illustrations’ that you are making here is at odds with your initial sentence. Viz.: [quote]: ‘you would be refreshingly unimpressed by this precisely dexterous, crafted hand, trained since childhood and many years in advertising illustrations’ [endquote] and your following observation ‘I too much prefer loose creative unbound art, but these long lasting Hebbian connection, do not seem to quit’. I do understand the need to make a living (most of my ‘bread and butter’ work was in hand-crafted ceramics such as table-ware pottery and in teaching craft-skills and art theory) and I am in no way spurning necessity. It is just that if there is a quicker, easier and more efficacious way of achieving the desired result without compromising integrity I am all for it ... and computers (with programmes such as CAD programmes) do this admirably. * RESPONDENT: I too much prefer loose creative unbound art, but these long lasting Hebbian connection, do not seem to quit, no matter what I believe or who or what is steering the ship. RICHARD: Oh? Are you referring to what is known as ‘The Hebbian Learning Rule’ first proposed by Mr. D. O. Hebb in 1949? If so, I know nothing about it worthy of comment other than what is learned can be unlearned and what is done can be undone. The neural pathways are not hard-wired ... old connections can dissolve, dissipate, die if judiciously targeted and new, healthy networks formed. RESPONDENT: Yes, the conscious mind is basically curious, open and equipped to examine its own contents. It’s primary purpose is not, as some believe, to inhibit data. Left alone, it receives and interprets inner and outer impressions very well. But mankind has taught it to accept (only) data coming from either the outside world, or (only) data coming from the conscious mind (as in eastern concepts) which has set up barriers to freedom of knowledge. Thereby inhibiting creative expression, and denying consciousness the continually emerging insights and experiences otherwise available. Am I opening up a can of worms here. RICHARD: Please do open it – if you are so inclined – for there is no ‘inner’ or ‘outer’ in actuality. RESPONDENT: There is still so much unknown about the brain and neuronal memory. I’ve always been curious as to how and why one body chooses to program and tighten the connection between hand and brain and another does not. What on earth motivated me to learn to draw since before 2 years old, undeterred by the fact that no other member of the family was similarly interested. And how unforgettable it became, like riding a bike. When I was very young, I would sometimes wonder upon waking up, whether today was the day, I would discover the magic ability had gone , but it never did, and I began to realise that it had become deeply ingrained. I never did meet any one else (in the flesh) with the same degree of dexterity, just once during East Sydney Tech. Even after months or years of not drawing in my teens, it would astound me that no brain-hand coordination had been lost or even gone rusty. More amazing, was the discovery that the dexterity had sharpened and matured even without practice!, that was just down right baffling. RICHARD: People are born with differing aptitudes or a predilection for a particular talent due to the rapid shuffling of the genes at conception ... hence the variation between siblings. * RICHARD: There is nobody ‘steering the ship’ here ... free will is a myth: the situation and the circumstances dictate, each moment again, the optimum course of action. What usually happens is that ‘I’ step in – albeit a split-second later – and arrogate authorship by claiming the organic decision-making process for being ‘my’ own decision. There is nobody in charge of the universe. RESPONDENT: So, you are not saying the homo sapiens brain is a victim of circumstances, (incapable of choosing the situations it find itself in) just that there is, no captain in there. As you say like art ‘It is its own actuality’? Are you saying that the brain is in actual freedom and able to choose or not choose its bodily situations without any imaginary ‘I’? It makes sense that without the imaginary ‘I’ in the way, it operates undivided from the ‘optimum course of action’ in which all things live and move and have their sensate existence? RICHARD: Yes, it all happens effortlessly of its own accord ... there is no need for any ‘captain’ whatsoever. RESPONDENT: So are you saying the universe is like Borg but without Borg’s central operator? RICHARD: No, I am unable to anthropomorphise. RESPONDENT: I have had great difficulty accepting the eastern concept that there is nothing here except a Self. RICHARD: Good. * RICHARD: When one is fully engrossed in the act of creating art – wherein the painting paints itself – the art-form takes on a life of its own and ceases to be a representation during the event. It is its own actuality. One can only stand in amazement and wonder – which is not to negate the very essential patiently acquired skills and expertise – and this marvelling is what was experienced back when I was a normal person. It was this magical way of creativity that led ‘me’ into this whole investigation of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. ‘I’ desired to live my whole life like these utter moments of artistic creation. RESPONDENT: You might then enjoy Stanislaw Kors. www.colors.co.za/kors/ RICHARD: Umm ... no art has any effect whatsoever upon me these days, no matter who the artist. RESPONDENT: Not even the universe experiencing itself as artist? RICHARD: No ... I am not only ‘refreshingly unimpressed’ by graphic design these days but the fine arts as well – I have not practised for twenty years – for all art is but a representation of the actual. * RICHARD: Consequently, all I see is the structural, technical, theoretical/philosophical and culturally aesthetic qualities ... and looking at the work of Mr. Stanislaw Kors (and here comes the critique) I was immediately struck by the fact that in most of his paintings the focal point is centralised – it is particularly obvious looking at the ‘thumbnail’ page – which makes for static, rather than dynamic viewing (the eye has nowhere to roam, to feast, to savour). RESPONDENT: Interesting. Stanislaw’s art sends my eyes roaming, floating and exploring all over the canvas, and the central focuses radiate and spiral out, as in all forms of nature, a snow flake, a shell, a tree. And those natural contrasts of soft and hard , smooth, jagged, light and dark, with those subtle colours, the grey mauves and violets of stones, the autumn tones and the shades of dawns and sunsets etc. And then there are those gaily meandering unpredictable forms, quite enchanting. RICHARD: Okay ... as I said: no art has any effect whatsoever upon me. * RICHARD: One could crop a quarter of the canvas off the paintings, around the edges, and very little would be lost from the main event. RESPONDENT: Oh but much would be lost, that indispensable space forms float in, and the mysterious folds and cracks in those spaces. RICHARD: In the context you describe, yes ... but as I have no imaginative/intuitive facilities whatsoever I see no mystery * RICHARD: Thus the technique seems to be inspired by ... um ... graphic design rather than ‘lose creative unbound art’ and the images are tightly controlled, contrived and facile. RESPONDENT: Ah yes, but not nearly as ... um ... (very cute) competent is natures graphic art. RICHARD: I am none too sure what you are wanting to convey here, but I see no ‘graphic art’ in nature. * RICHARD: I am sure the ‘dreamscape’ imagery (which he calls ‘infra-reality’) is appealing, however, in a science-fiction come new age sort of way ... with hints of ovum-like planetary birth and/or rebirth floating amidst pastel blue-mauve-pink ‘clouds’ in some escapist ‘other’ or ‘parallel’ universe where all is bright and beautiful. The artist does not appear to like the world where 6.0 billion peoples live. RESPONDENT: Mmm, I seem to be missing something. Can you clarify why you deduce that paintings that are merely reflecting natures graphic forms is the work of an artist who ‘does not appear to like the world where 6.0 billion peoples live’? RICHARD: As I do not see that his paintings are ‘merely reflecting natures graphic forms’ this is a loaded question (I have already explained that to me they are a ‘dreamscape’ imagery which he calls ‘infra-reality’). Thus anybody who prefers the dream-world over the physical world obviously does not like the world where 6.0 billion peoples live. The direct experiencing of the physical (the actual world) each moment again is vastly superior to looking at a painting of someone’s ‘inner’ world (‘infra’ means below or beneath). * RICHARD: What I am (what not who) is the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me ... this is a direct experiencing of the actual in all its pristine freshness. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain ... which is an indirect experiencing of the actual (through a translucent veneer of what is called ‘reality’). As the perfection of the purity of the actual is inaccessible, the intuitive/imaginative facility is required to enhance experience ... an ersatz picture, in other words. RESPONDENT: Yes exactly. At the moment I’m reading Joseph LeDoux’s book ‘The Emotional Brain’, very interesting, but it is Win Wenger’s book ‘The Einstein Factor’ which prompted my question on imagination, coupled with my interest in creative thought (Win Wenger is an advocate of Image Streaming as a method to increase ones intelligence). In his book he gives these examples; Tesla’s Gift. • [quote]: ‘1. The intensity of Tesla’s Image Stream appeared to stimulate his genius. Among his many talents, Tesla possessed the remarkable ability to visualize his inventions in minute detail before even beginning to write them down. He would mentally build a new device part by part and test-run it, all in his imagination. So accurate were Tesla’s mental blueprints that he could diagnose a problem with a machine by the way it ran in his mind. ‘It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop’, he wrote. ‘I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, By this means, Tesla developed all the basic mechanisms of today’s global electric power grid, including high-voltage transformers, long-distance transmission lines, hydroelectric generators, and alternating current’. • 2. ‘A Baseball Genius: Some years ago, I visited a friend in Chicago. My friend’s son was trying out for the high school baseball team but feared he wouldn’t make the cut because of his poor batting average. I worked with the boy for about an hour, employing many of the techniques that you will learn to use later in this book. In the course of our session, the boy discovered that he had the greatest success when he imagined a tiny flyspeck on the baseball and aimed his bat at that flyspeck rather than at the ball itself. This flyspeck gave him just the extra focus he needed to connect with the ball. It may seem a trivial insight, but its effect on the boy’s game was astonishing. In baseball, a .250 to .300 batting average is considered quite good. But during the first ten games of the season, this boy batted .800! He not only made the team but went on to be named Most Valuable Player for both the team and the league for that year. In a single one-hour session, we had succeeded in identifying a technique that made this boy a baseball genius’. • 3. ‘Genius does seem to be linked to the intensity of our subconscious imagery, but to be effective we must strike a balance. In striving to gain access on demand to intense and vivid imagery, we must also preserve the ability to squelch it at appropriate times. This balance is best achieved through a controlled process like Image Streaming, which allows us to choose the time and place of our imaging and to remain completely conscious and alert throughout the session’ [endquote]. RICHARD: If one is going to accept the status-quo for what it is and ‘make the best of a bad situation’ then such concentrated and focussed effort as described above would probably be the better way to go. RESPONDENT: When the brain is learning to utilise its potential in order to take itself out of the status-quo, it requires initial ‘concentrated and focussed effort’ as when learning draw as a child. RICHARD: The ‘status-quo’ I was referring to is the dumb acceptance of the supposed irrevocability of the human condition (as in ‘you can’t change human nature’). RESPONDENT: Now that the brain-hand co-ordination has been trained, concentrated focussed effort is no longer required to draw extremely well, it is now as effortless as the beating of the heart. One can then move on to what one draws and no longer how one draws. RICHARD: Are you sure that this is what Mr. Win Wenger is promoting in the paragraphs you quoted above? It reads like an on-going technique to me. * RICHARD: It is this simple: back when I used to be able to visualise, what would happen is that it is all mapped out, planned in advance, and all that was left was a ‘colouring-in-by-numbers’ style of painting and/or drawing and/or whatever. All the creativity was confined to mental-emotional imagery department – a dream-like fantasy – which rarely, if ever, translated into pen and paper or paint and canvas ... with the resultant frustration in being unable to manifest the vision into actuality. RESPONDENT: Yes such is the letdown of expectations. I have learned to sketch only the basic outlines mentally and quickly, then let come what may in the actual manifestation of the artwork. A little of both. RICHARD: I am somewhat nonplussed by this response of yours when compared with the following exchange:
* RICHARD: The main reason was that the mental picture was not constrained by the physical medium and thus compromises inevitably creep in, even early in the piece. One is then left with trying to force actuality into fitting the fancy ... with less than desirable results. What I discovered, when the ‘painting painted itself’, was that actuality ruled the roost, as it were, and magically manifested perfection ... such as to leave me, as I remarked (further above) standing in amazement and wonder, marvelling at this magical creativity. Modesty – especially false modesty – disappeared along with pride ... ‘I’ was not doing this. RESPONDENT: This is most interesting, I have always told anyone who asks me ‘how did I do that’ that I am not doing it, it is as much a mystery to me as them. RICHARD: Again this explanation is at odds with the question you ‘find most pressing’ in your initial E-Mail. Am I to take it that you no longer ‘graphically visualise mental concepts and visually recall data relevant to what [you] wish to convey’? If so, why is it still ‘as much a mystery to [you] as them’? RESPONDENT: In fact pride or modesty only hinders free flowing creativity. It is ‘I’ who stands in the way ... pride and modesty are but attributes of ‘me’.
RESPONDENT: Richard, I think most misunderstandings happen when one ‘expects’ the other to know how one has categorised a subject without clarifying. Now that you have elaborated that the graphic art you were referring to is the ‘restrictions of the advertising/illustrating medium’ whilst I was discussing graphic art as evident in both illustration and fine art and of course, the use of imagination in all fields, well then, of course it is understandable that you were at odds with much of what I wrote. RICHARD: Okay ... I have wound back my expectation indicator a notch or two. RESPONDENT: There were are few little nit picks that I enjoyed reading, along with your charming pleas of ‘yet I was referring to’, (yet how was I to know, for you had not clarified it so, such as your first semester) which brought a quizzical smile. RICHARD: Uh huh ... I am tickled that you enjoy my writing style. RESPONDENT: I completely failed to see why you were at odds with such flexibilities as, how one can have Hebbian connections which don’t quit, yet also have portions of the brain’s memory canals that are not so hard wired. How one can know one is not the ultimate doer, allowing the final work to come as it may, whilst also co-ordinating Hebbian connections (learned mental and manual techniques) and thought imagery. RICHARD: You can, of course, keep your ‘flexibilities’ intact for as much and for as long as you wish. The universe does not insist that anyone be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice ... it is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. And it is not so much that I am ‘at odds with such flexibilities’ ... it is just that perfection itself, being flawless and immaculate, is utterly intransigent for a cunning ‘I’ and/or ‘me’. The perfection of the purity of this actual world (as evident in a PCE) is so crystal clear, so consistently clean and so sparklingly salubrious, that nothing ‘dirty’ can get in. RESPONDENT: These are not contradictions to me, but co-ordinated complimentaries in this mysterious and spacious open system, full of seemingly infinite possibilities. RICHARD: Certainly ... the mystical solution to duality is indeed to see the polar opposites as being complementary poles rather than contradictions (through their sublimation and transcendence in lieu of their elimination through self-extinction). For example:
Whereas there is no ‘good’ and ‘evil’ – no duality whatsoever – here in this actual world (there is no ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ in an actual freedom from the human condition). RESPONDENT: What I am most interested in, Richard, is bring forth some rather unusual questions about the nature of what is ‘Actual’. Questions about the energies which constitute matter ‘as we know it’ (through the senses), and the various speeds and properties of substance that the senses are unable to register. These may not interest you but it will help me understand (I’m choosing my words carefully here just how finely tuned is this third alternative focus ... RICHARD: If you mean questions such as the make-up of atoms and the speed of sound waves, radio waves, light waves and so on, then I would make it clear that I am not a physicist ... nor a mathematician. Consequently I do not pretend to know all the detailed analysis of the constitution of physical matter/energy gathered and/or proposed so far by human beings ... which means that this lay-person viewpoint enables me to not fall for the all-too-obvious errors of omission (and errors of commission) that dogs the mathematically-driven physicist’s world-view. RESPONDENT: ... and (dare I say) which species of pure conscious experience – in this infinitely variable universe – it gravitates towards. RICHARD: Sure ... if you will provide a list detailing all of your differing ‘species of pure conscious experience’ – each complete with a recognisable description – we could take it from there, eh? RESPONDENT: I’d also like to learn more about your actual experience of there being no inner or outer, as compared to Zen, perhaps there is a link to it on your site. RICHARD: Zen Buddhism is grounded in the experience of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, who based his entire teaching on the truth of ‘dukkha’ ... all physical existence is ‘dukkha’, he decided. He thus rationalised that living amid the impermanence (‘annica’) of everything, and being themselves transitory, human beings search for the way of deliverance (‘nirvana’) to realise the deathlessness (‘amata-dhamma’) which shines beyond the transitoriness of human existence; he asserted there was no essential or ultimate reality (‘paramattha dhamma’) in the world of people, things and events. He said: ‘There is an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, an uncompounded; were there not, there would be no escape from the world of the born, the originated, the made, and the compounded’ (Nibbana Sutta; Udana viii.3). Thus, Buddhism is 180 degrees in the other direction to an actual freedom ... a total disassociation from the world of flesh and blood bodies; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the clouds by day and the stars at night – this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe – insomuch as only ‘Parinirvana’ is truly real. Viz.:
In this Pali Canon Sutra (the earliest recorded scriptures) Mr. Gotama the Sakyan is totally unambiguous and unequivocally plain-speaking in his description of the ‘deathless state’ ... for he was anti-life to the core, condemning all temporal, spatial and material existence in no uncertain terms. And any Zen practitioner who tries to remonstrate otherwise is either lying through their teeth or just does not understand what their ‘Lord Buddha’ was on about ... there is even a Web Page devoted to proving that Buddhism is environmentally aware – eco-friendly – in a puerile attempt to make Buddhism palatable for the undiscerning, the desperate, the gullible. Viz.:
Presumably trees are – all of a sudden – strangely exempt when seeing the pernicious nature of birth, disease, old age and death ... which ‘seeing’ is the only truly faithful Buddhist way of living life (the very existence of ‘birth, disease, old age, death’ being Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s profound insight into the root cause of suffering). RESPONDENT: Also how does one ‘accept the world as it is, with people as they are’, even though one sees them all as unacceptably nursing malice and sorrow, bringing forth wars etc., etc. RICHARD: I do not advise anyone to ‘accept the world as it is, with people as they are’ ... I always put the question this way: ‘How can I live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are?’ Which means: how is it possible to enjoy and appreciate being here, each moment again, as this flesh and blood body? Or: in what way can one live in complete fulfilment and total contentment for the remainder of one’s life? With the purity and perfection of a pure consciousness experience (PCE) firmly in mind as one’s guiding light one asks, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Incidentally, the word ‘acceptance’ has a lot of currency these days and popular usage has given it somewhat the same meaning as ‘allow’ or ‘permit’ or ‘tolerate’ ... nineteen years ago ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the physical world and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ the persona realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ the persona felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the ‘real-world’ that ‘I’ had inherited – the world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. I ceased accepting, allowing, permitting or tolerating or being resigned to suffering there and then. Which is why I say to people to embrace death (as in unreservedly saying !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body) as a full-blooded approval and endorsement. Those peoples who say that they ‘accept’ ... um ... a rapist, for just one example, never for one moment are approving and endorsing ... let alone unreservedly saying !YES! to the rapist. So much for ‘acceptance’ as a viable modus operandi. RESPONDENT: By the way, when you replied to my (silly) Borg question with ‘no, I am unable to anthropomorphise’ I then realised you most probably don’t watch Star Trek, because neither do they. RICHARD: I have not watched Star Trek but I have been made aware of the various personalities by some peoples likening me to this ‘Borg’ character. I have noticed that people, who do not read what I have to say with both eyes open, gain the impression that I am suggesting that people are to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings ... as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. However, in a PCE the feelings – passion and calenture – can come rushing in, if one is not alert, resulting in the PCE devolving into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... complete with a super-self. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is impossible for there to be no feelings whilst there is a self – in this case a Self – thus it is the ‘being’ that has to go first ... not the feelings. It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ self – divested of feelings – for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Anyone who attempts this absurdity would wind up being somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly know as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ – and has repressed the others. What the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about is a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). RESPONDENT: Also Richard, something about the wording of your following statement disconnects my comprehension: ‘it is ‘I’ who stands in the way ... pride and modesty are but attributes of ‘me’’. So ‘me’s’ have ‘but’ attributes (and its the ‘but’ that also stumps me, not only the I’s and me’s and ‘I’s’ do not – and – are not an attribute either? RICHARD: I could also have said ‘aspects’ instead of ‘attributes’ ... meaning they are but indications, signs, clues, that there is an ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ in there trying to divest itself of some undesirable aspects of itself. It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ self – divested of feelings such as pride and modesty – for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ (hence my comment about ‘false modesty’ as it is analogous to ‘spiritual humility’). ‘I’ and/or ‘me’, being charged by blind nature to survive at any cost, thus stays in existence to wreak its havoc once more. RESPONDENT: I began reading the list archives from day one, very interesting, and have reached Jan 99, so breath easy, I won’t always be this dense. RICHARD: I do not expect anyone to instantly grasp all the ramifications and implications of something totally new to human experience ... which means I am always pleasantly surprised whenever someone clicks to what is being presented. Also, being comprehended through the written word means that I am not needed in the process and that the third alternative will endure after my physical death. This pleases me greatly for I have only ever wanted a third alternative to either materialism or spiritualism to be available in the world for discerning persons to gain confirmation or affirmation from. RESPONDENT: Its a bit like a soap opera, I can’t wait to see if Irene came back. RICHARD: Irene is one of the most gutsy women I have ever come across – I would not be here where I
am today without her very essential and able partnership – thus I have the highest regard for her tenacity of purpose. She is
currently experiencing the nature of love and its power – if this information be of further interest to your advancement of
understanding an actual freedom from the human condition – and I wrote my version of what is currently happening a couple of
months ago. Life is a grand adventure ... it leaves any soap opera for dead on the cutting-room floor. Continued in Mailing List ‘B’: No. 40
CORRESPONDENT No. 10 (Part Two) RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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