Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘D’ Correspondence

July 26, 2015

Hi Vineeto,

From here out (and going back too if it’s a simple enough swap), please feel free to use my name, ‘Rick’, in the correspondence archives, instead of an anonymized numerical identifier such as ‘Respondent No. 75’ or ‘Respondent No. 10’.

Best regards,
Rick.

May 13 2009

Re: Discussion about ‘Actual freedom is highly possible’

CO-RESPONDENT: [Richard]: ‘This is an exciting period to live in. For the first time in human history, it is possible for anyone who applies themselves with sufficient application and diligence – guided by pure intent – to become virtually free, virtually pure, virtually perfect. It is then highly possible that this person can actualise the ultimate as being the immediate.’ (Richard, Selected Writings, Instincts).

2: Why and based on what fact or reasoning is this sentence written?: ‘It is then highly possible that this person can actualise the ultimate as being the immediate.’ Why it is possible for anyone who applies vs. it is then highly possible? It can only leave a room to some fate or genetic impotence as to what decides if one achieves AF or not. Because, if not it must be ‘possible to anyone’ and not just ‘highly possible’. Any thoughts?

RICHARD: The key-word is ‘history’.

I scoured the books, to no avail, for many, many years looking for information about what is nowadays known as an actual freedom from the human condition.

Thus it is information – or knowledge, if you will – which makes it highly possible, rather than just possible, not genetics (or whatever). (Richard, List D, No. 9, 13 May 2009).

RICK: So, what makes it ‘highly possible’ to be actually free (in this quoted section), is not the information or knowledge you gathered, but a virtual freedom.

For clarity and accuracy sake, ‘So, what makes it ‘highly possible’ to be actually free (in this quoted section), is not the information or knowledge [concerning an actual freedom from the human condition that you made to the public], but a virtual freedom.

RICHARD: G’day Rick,

The information or knowledge made publicly available is in regards to both an actual and a virtual freedom from the human condition.

Neither freedom has any historical reference (as far as can be ascertained).

That particular quote, located online in ‘Selected Writings’, is an extract from ‘Richard’s Journal’ wherein it goes on to say (five sentences later) that a virtual freedom is the essential precursor to the ultimate condition.

The virtual freedom being referred to in ‘Richard’s Journal’ is, of course, the full-blown experiencing of it: an out-from-being-under-control and, thus, different way of being nowadays known as an ongoing excellence experience.

(This ongoing excellence experience is what the methodological aspect of a virtual freedom – a persistent and diligent application of the actualism method – can morph into whenever that current-time awareness method has been applied to a sufficiency for that to occur/ have happen).

This penultimate out-from-under-control/ different-way-of-being is barely distinguishable from a pure consciousness experience.

(It was from this ongoing excellence experiencing that pure consciousness experiences occurred on a near-daily basis – sometimes two-three times a day – for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago).

Hence ‘highly possible’.

Regards, Richard.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

P.S.: Incidentally, three paragraphs later, in ‘Richard’s Journal’, it is put as ‘highly likely’. Viz.:

May 17 2009

Re: Humanity: My God

RICK: I do not know how much longer you will be communicating on this board, Richard, so I wish to grasp the opportunity while there still seems to be one to converse with you about an issue or two that’s been bugging me as of late.

Am I making any sense? Humanity has got me by the balls and it’s not letting go. I can’t, as of now, find a successful way to abandon this abusive relationship (a relationship where I am both the abused and the abusing). There is a vague fear of being tortured and/or killed or institutionalized for psychically turning my back on Humanity and its inhabitants ... Not to mention ostracized (I won’t get to eat those yummy, addictive carrots no more). Maybe I am too crazy, too human, too animal, too evil, too immature to break free yet from Big Daddy and Mommy and go off on my own. All are welcome to comment, add, or share ... and all are welcome to ignore and discard without compassion and/ or sympathy.

RICHARD: G’day Rick, As the operative-word in all the above is ‘self-worth’ (and self-worth as derived from others’ opinion at that) perhaps a personal anecdote may be of assistance.

(If nothing else it will provide some light relief/ entertainment).

Many years ago, back when I was a normal bloke and making my living as a practising artist, a minor art gallery in a major city approached me with a proposition to stage a one-man exhibition of my idiosyncratic ceramic work – with the selection to be entirely of my own choice – complete with metropolis-wide advertising, an opening night with the usual razzamatazz (wine and cheese, etc.), invitations to various art-critics, quite liberal terms of commission, and a guaranteed-to-be-exclusive three-week run.

I was a big frog in a small provincial pond, at the time, and this was an opportunity to be a small frog in a large urban pond – to put one foot on the bottom rung of a potential ladder of national success – so the rather generous offer with its opportune entrée into the inner-city art establishment was readily accepted and a firm date was set for three months hence.

Without any thought at all it was obvious to me the exhibition would comprise entirely of fresh pieces – even though there was already more than enough high quality items at hand (which the art gallery had in mind) – as that way a cohesive body of work, with a yet to be discovered theme, would bring about the integrity necessary to carry the day.

Now, with ceramics there is normally a five-to-six week lead-in time (due to the process of making, carving, drying, first-firing, glazing, decorating, and second-firing) yet the days became weeks until, despite the frequent reminders and promptings of my then-wife, only three weeks remained before the big night.

And three weeks was the absolute minimum time-span; if the eighty-odd pieces were not formed today then the afore-mentioned hodgepodge stock-at-hand would have to be pressed into service.

Not that the art-gallery would mind, of course, but I would.

For most of the morning I wedged, kneaded and balled the highest quality (the most-aged and ripened) clay from my extensive stocks of hand-dug and hand-mixed local clays; it was one of those quite marvellous days of lightly overcast skies and a gentle, misty rain; there was no wind at all, not even the slightest zephyr of a breeze; the quietly gleaming hand-made copper kettle was sitting, steaming gently atop the cheery pot-bellied stove in my studio; music from a nowadays-superseded four-track cartridge player was piping through all its strategically placed speakers; the dank, swampy aroma of the well-matured clay was filling the nostrils as it began to bounce elastically beneath my well-practiced kneading hands; and soon all was well, within my world, as any and all stress from time-pressure softly ebbed away.

Settling myself onto my home-made pottery wheel, and kicking it into action, I swiftly and easily formed a few small throwaway pieces so as to get my hand in.

Then, without any further ado, I reached for the first of the eighty-odd different-sized balls of finely-prepared clay; dropping it onto the still slowing-turning wheel-head I kicked up the momentum of the heavy wheel beneath my feet; moistening my hands in the bowls of warm, muddy water to either side I then centred the clay ball and began throwing the first of the many individual pieces which would eventually comprise the whole.

Being well-dug, well-prepared, well-aged, well-wedged and well-kneaded the clay, whilst supremely elastic, was taut and springy beneath the hands; there would be no slumping, no sagging, no bulging, just this easy pulling up to maximum height; just this graceful setting of bellied form; just this elegant rolling of lip just this effortless forming of the base; just this ready pass of the cutting thread detaching it from the wheel-head; just this gentle placing of it on the ready-to-hand shelf-tray nearby; just this regular reaching for the next ball; just this easy kicking keeping the momentum rolling.

Upon placing the third or fourth newly-formed piece alongside its predecessors, and whilst reaching for the next ball, it is evident the clouds are clearing a trifle; the sun is shining fitfully through a gap onto the translucent full-height screens immediately to the front; some chickens are clucking and scratching around in the ground just beyond them; ducks are quacking and nosing into the mud of the small pond nearby; off in the near-distance the pigs are snorting and snuffling for roots; one of the goats is bleating; a couple of the geese are honking; and ... and a by-now-familiar and oh-so-subtle shift is occurring in the brain-stem.

All-of-a-sudden there is a vast stillness – there is absolutely no movement of time – and in that perfect peace the piece of pottery is making itself.

The foot is kicking the massive wheel of its own accord; the hands are dipping themselves into the warm, muddy water; the eyes are eying the bellied form all on their own; the hands, one on the inside and the other on the outside just below the former, are gently coaxing the perfect shape without command (or is the perfect form gently coaxing the hands to its bidding); and the whole world – nay, the entire universe, itself – is a magical fairytale-like wonderland where nothing, but nothing, ever ultimately goes wrong.

*

And then, with the sun sinking spectacularly in the west behind banked clouds, the one-hundredth pot has made itself (so much for the planned eighty-odd) and the one-man exhibition is in the bag ... guaranteed to be a fantastic success.

*

It is now three weeks later: all the pieces have been carved, dried, first-fired, glazed, decorated, second-fired, packed, transported, unpacked and selectively placed upon their pedestals in the major city art gallery.

It is opening night and the place is packed with peoples from many walks of life; all milling around, glasses in hand, seeing and being seen. Being the star of the show I am, accordingly, a trifle late in arriving (as is the fashion). With orange juice in hand I mix and mingle; a word or two here; a tilt of the head there; a small chat here; a wink and a grin there; a murmured response here; and all the while noticing those little red stickers appearing, first on this piece, then on that piece, more on those pieces, until almost every single piece is snapped-up.

It is shaping up to be a sell-out ... and all on opening night!

The curator is tapping on his glass, calling for attention, and the speechifying begins; soon it is my turn to speak and every eye is turned toward me, every ear is listening to me, everybody’s rapt attention is directed towards the ... well, towards the star of the show, of course.

But I am not the star of the show – the pieces made themselves, remember, back in that magical wonderland – and yet all of the accolades, all of the applause, all of the (yes) adulation, is centred solely upon me.

It was at that moment I understood something so profound it is permanently etched into the memory banks ... to wit: I did not and could not value their collective/ individual opinions one iota, one jot, for they knew not of what they spoke.

And even if they were to be told, that the pieces magically made themselves, they would lavish praise for being so gifted/ so blessed/ so whatever.

Moreover, they did not, and would not ever, comprehend that the esteem they bestowed so lavishly slid straight off me like that proverbial water off a duck’s back ... as, at that very moment, self-esteem and all its associated vanity and humility vanished out of my life forever, never to return, even unto this very day.

*

And so, Rick, as we come to the end of this quaint little wonder-land tale, just what value is self-esteem, eh?

Regards, Richard.

November 10 2009

Re: Peculiar Information # 5

RESPONDENT No. 14: I find some gaps in your Richards Résumé regard this.

RICHARD: Sure ... ‘tis only a résumé (a summary, an epitome) after all.

I am gradually putting together a personal web-page – a more biographical account (plus many snapshots taken at various stages of my life going back to childhood) in a secular way of presentation – which goes into the personal details of my childhood experiences, my military experience, my marriage experiences, my parental experiences, my artistic experiences, my latter-day lifestyle and so on and so forth.

I have long had the intention of presenting my discovery in that manner – in a secular way – so as to have more emphasis on the philosophical/ psychological features and a marked de-emphasis on the mystical/ metaphysical aspects.

(I have, on occasion, verbally presented my story to peoples of a materialist/ humanist persuasion, without recourse to any metaphysicality at all, and they have had no difficulty in their comprehension of it when delivered in that manner). (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 7 November 2009).

RICK: Excellent idea, Richard, and thank you for continuing to ‘reach out’ to all of us like through the secular approach you mentioned. I for one will be really, really looking forward to this.

RICHARD: G’day Rick, I appreciate your words of encouragement.

It is a secular approach only in its way of presentation as the content is no different, in essence, from what I already have online.

Indeed, I started my new website by copy-pasting paragraphs from here and there on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website and then adding to it, or subtracting from it, whatever seemed suitable.

In other words, although there is some new material (mainly of an autobiographical nature) it is essentially no different to that which is already available.

(Although I am noticing how it is beginning to take on a life of its own, as it were, as I add a bit here and a bit there and delete something here and something there, and so on).

What got me started on it was when I had written a comment on a secular weblog, one day, and the emeritus professor wrote a brief, dismissive reply in a rather condescending manner.

When I responded it occurred to me that, being anonymous, it could very well be some young whippersnapper in his eyes so I figured it might help by registering as a ‘blogger’ – complete with my name and a tiny portrait pic – so as to at least allay any impressions of that nature.

Upon doing so there was a place to link to my web-page and it was then that the long-ago notion of a secular website came to the fore as there was a marked reluctance on my part to link to what is already online.

(Having been a materialist/ humanist myself until my early thirties I am well aware of what can be, and usually is, rather off-putting at first glance).

Lastly, I had been fiddling around with a bit of java-scripting and it has been fun learning something new, having a go at it, and then seeing the results (plus going back to the drawing board again and again until it works).

‘Tis only a little bit of scripting, though.

Regards, Richard.

P.S.: Do not hold your breath whilst looking forward to it as it is progressing quite slowly.

I am thoroughly enjoying my retirement lifestyle.

November 11 2009

Re: Peculiar Information # 5

RICHARD: Also, a certain event has shown to me that my experience and, thus, expertise in matters pertaining to consciousness may nowadays be put to better effect (now that millions of words are freely available online) when on a one-to-one basis. I am, of course, referring to a near-five month PCE incurred by such an interaction. (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 7 November 2009).

RICK: Richard, are you altering your stance that it is indeed pointless coming to see you vis-a-vis?

• [Richard]: ‘I have experimented, over the three years or so since I went public with my discovery on the internet, to see whether I am correct or incorrect (and not merely theorising) in saying that it is the words that convey an actual freedom from the human condition, and to thus find out for myself as to whether it is pointless coming to see me in person or not. It is indeed pointless coming to see me in person’. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Authority).

RICHARD: G’day Rick, Ha ... a fuller exposition of the theme expressed in that quote can be found where the following quote resides:

• [Richard]: ‘I am having too much fun, living my life in the way I see fit, to clutter up my lifestyle with ‘guru-circuit’ peoples, who cannot think for themselves, trooping daily through my front door’. (Richard, The Actual Freedom list, No. 12g, 29 Nov 2000).

And this one (also at that link) explains why I wrote that:

[Richard]: ‘A self-confessed guru-seeker from the other side of the world came to see me, having had some contact with the actual freedom writings, with the view of being able to be finished with gurus forever. Every afternoon for nearly six weeks this person had a private face-to-face interaction – for four to six hours every afternoon for 39 days this person had a one-on-one intimacy – and then this guru-seeker went back to their guru’. (Richard, Actual Freedom list, No. 12g, 29 November 2000).

Be that as it may ... the main reason I declined each and every personal-meeting request for twelve years is because words expressed thataway could vanish into the air whereas words written publicly – where others could join in – continued to exist after the initial conversation.

That way everyone benefited (including future readers).

Now that a vast body of actualism writings exist it does not matter if verbally expressed words were to vanish ... which is one of the reasons why I finally agreed to such a request earlier on this year (in March 2009) and another one only a month or so ago (for January 2010). (Plus, of course, my public offer on this forum, to another outstanding fellow human being, back in May this year). (No. 4 report).

The main reason, however, is the undeniable benefit of the event already mentioned (further above) ... to wit: a near-five month PCE incurred solely by such an interaction.

Please note how it is all experimental at this stage – and I do not now have an open-door policy – as there is no guarantee of anything of similar nature occurring (it may very well be a one-off event).

What this means in effect is that, as I will not be agreeing to any more requests (or at least not until after Jan-Feb next year), there is no point in anyone else asking.

Regards, Richard.

November 25 2009

Re: Why the Inclination?

RICK: Richard, if I may ask, why now are you corresponding with us here on this message board? [snip quote].

RESPONDENT No. 37: Have you heard of [No. 37] who has no knowledge and is asking for a proof from Richard by way of a fear response test?

RICK: That fear response test you propose is a really crappy one from what I’ve read. I wouldn’t be afraid of a gunshot shot at close range knowing full well that I was undergoing a controlled test and my life was not in danger. I may be startled, I may jump ... but that may just be an instinctive reflex and not a passionate instinctual reaction. I think that is what Richard is saying that the test would only produce results that are inconclusive. You need a better test (and one that won’t involve physical torture like water boarding or a really well done mock-execution ‘cause that’s just not right) in order to confidently rely on any data extracted from the results of the test.

RESPONDENT No. 37: Maybe you missed my later post but later on I revised the test. Instead of firing a shot close range, I asked Richard to play a video game involving war.

RICK: Are you serious? I was just talking to a friend today who is a Gulf War veteran, an Iraq War veteran and served in Afghanistan after 9/11. He’s seen his share of the ravages of war and we were just talking about the newest big-budget war video game that has just hit the market. He’s already bought it and plays that shit for FUN. Not everybody who’s experienced war suffers post-traumatic stress disorder.

RESPONDENT No. 37: Alright then it should be a piece of cake for Richard to fly through but why assume? You want Richard to have fun, right?

RICK: I’m sure Richard has plenty fun already and won’t need the videogame. Point is, the test that you propose is terrible (no pun intended).

RESPONDENT No. 37: Point is that I already predicted that what you are doing is what actualists will start to do.

RICK: Ha. Well, you win. I guess this concludes Richard has the full set of instinctual passions because he won’t play a war video game which, as we already know (or at least I know firsthand), does not bring about a trace of fear/ dread/ trauma in an instinctually-driven human being who has experienced his fair share of the ravages of war. With all due respect, your case against him so far is just plain silly.

RICHARD: G’day Rick, In case you missed what was implied by your co-respondent’s initial response to your query about why I am corresponding on this message board (at the top of this email) I will provide the following:

• [quote] ‘I knew it!!! I knew I should have added ‘He’s only come here to talk to me you guys, you watch ...’. (Message 5314)

*

In regards to your war-veteran friend and video games involving war: in the late nineties I became very interested in the potential which the first-person 3D war-game genre had for an ‘Actual Freedom’ game. With the ability to have a mannequin interact and move around in a 3D environment, progressing through different levels (which could change in both hue and brilliance in accord to either moods or clarity), it was quite appealing. As a consequence I purchased ‘Unreal Tournament’ and ‘Quake III Arena’ so as to get hands-on experience with the engines they were built on (otherwise costing $250,000) solely for a trial run in creating my own cyber-world environments. I also bought ‘Tomb Raider Chronicles’ for its engine and ‘Myst V’ for the same reason.

(I created several very basic cyber-world environments – both indoors and outdoors – but that is another story).

The point is I have a lot of hands-on experience at playing those type of games for no other reason than to find out how they operated and functioned. For instance, with ‘No One Lives Forever’ the first two levels were simply brilliant (although the engine is complex) and in order to poke around at my leisure, to find out how different details of the 3D world were created, I first had to go through and take out all the ‘Ninja Bots’ and then save the game once I had dragged all the ‘dead bodies’ out of sight into an alley behind a building.

(I also purchased a 5.1 surround sound system for that game as I was quite taken with being able to be situated on a bridge over a river, with the sounds of rushing water from a gushing waterfall, and rotate so as to hear it in 3D whilst taking in the spectacular view as well).

Now, while you say your war-veteran friend [quote] ‘plays that shit for FUN’ [endquote] for me taking out the ‘Ninja Bots’, for instance, was nothing but a necessary precursor to being able to move about at leisure afterwards. (For me the fun lay in that very moving around in, and being able to interact with, the cyber-world environment itself).

The scope of 3D games is tremendous.

Regards, Richard.

December 03 2009

Re: Third ‘wife’

RICHARD to No. 11: [...] the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago had no precedent to assure ‘him’ it was possible yet ‘he’ was entirely confident – with the certainty pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) confer that it be ‘his’ destiny to manumit the body ‘he’ held in bondage. Thus ‘he’ never had any doubt – ‘he’ was freed of doubt by that very absence of choice – an actual freedom was possible, in ‘his’ lifetime, for this flesh and blood body. (Any doubt comes from choice; for most people choice implies freedom – the freedom to chose – yet as choice means options there is always doubt; an actual freedom comes about by there being no choice whatsoever ... hence the word destiny).

I only mention this as you have made it clear, both in your postings prior to that frontal leucotome/ transorbital lobotomy email and after it, that you want your path to be the short-cut path – not via a virtual freedom – which means you have no other option but to invoke destiny. (Richard, List D, No. 11a, 28 Nov 2009).

RICK: Richard, can you expand on this short-cut path – not via virtual freedom?

RICHARD: G’day Rick, Sure ... first of all, the above conditions are utterly vital – entirely confident/ absolute certainty (PCE) freed of doubt/ absence of choice – else any invocatory destiny will be, at best, fruitless. (At worst ... well, fill in your own nightmare/ your own screaming heebie-jeebies scenario).

Also, bear in mind that every body is but a missed heart-beat or two away from death each and every day and then death is your constant companion; an ever-present reminder that to die without having ever lived fully – as in totally fulfilled, completely satisfied, utterly content – is such a waste of a life.

(I would say to people, all those years ago, that were I to live that which the PCE’s had made apparent – as in an irrevocable permanency – for only five minutes I would then happily die. For that is how precious an actual freedom from the human condition is).

RICK: I’d be awfully interested. You haven’t written much about it.

I am tempted to tamper with this ‘rapid (and sudden) way to actual freedom’ despite your warning.

RICHARD: With the absolute certainty/ total absence of choice of the PCE the invocation of destiny (oblivion/ extinction) is the deadly simple and fascinated contemplation of the fact that, as physical death is the end of ‘being’ anyway, it might as well happen sooner rather than later. (The oblivion/ extinction of ‘being’ at physical death is entirely without benefit in regards peace-on-earth whereas the oblivion/ extinction of ‘being’ at this moment in time is entirely beneficial to the host body and of a facilitatory benefit to all other bodies).

The fascinated contemplation – ‘fascinated’ as in a moth to a flame – morphs into a pure contemplation (as in an apperceptivity) upon it becoming startlingly apparent as an experiential actuality that this moment in time has no duration.

What this means, to an identity for whom time moves (as in past/ present/ future), is that the keep-it-safe extinction of ‘being’ (cunningly projected into some future moment) will be happening now when it does take place. (Time has no duration in actuality; now, being eternal, is already always dynamic in that everything happens now; nothing ever happens in past/ present/ future time).

As now is the way, then now is the means; as now is the means, then now is the end ... !Bingo! ... it is no longer possible to distinguish between life being lived and life doing the living as any such cause and effect has vanished without a trace (it never was anyway as time, as in past/ present/ future, has no existence in actuality).

This is ‘my’ moment of glory; this is ‘my’ crowning achievement; this makes ‘my’ petty life all worthwhile; this is ‘my’ most noble sacrifice for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear; this is ‘my’ legacy for all humankind; ‘my’ reward is to go blessedly into the oblivion ‘I’ have secretly craved all along.

‘My’ extinction made all this possible.

Regards, Richard.

P.S.: The key-word is: inevitability.

December 10 2009

Re: Third ‘wife’

RICHARD: [...] the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago had no precedent to assure ‘him’ it was possible yet ‘he’ was entirely confident – with the certainty pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) confer – that it be ‘his’ destiny to manumit the body ‘he’ held in bondage. Thus ‘he’ never had any doubt – ‘he’ was freed of doubt by that very absence of choice – an actual freedom was possible, in ‘his’ lifetime, for this flesh and blood body. (Any doubt comes from choice; for most people choice implies freedom – the freedom to chose – yet as choice means options there is always doubt; an actual freedom comes about by there being no choice whatsoever ... hence the word destiny).

I only mention this as you have made it clear [...] that you want your path to be the short-cut path – not via a virtual freedom – which means you have no other option but to invoke destiny.

RICK: Richard, can you expand on this short-cut path – not via virtual freedom?

RICHARD: Sure ... first of all, the above conditions are utterly vital – entirely confident/ absolute certainty (PCE) freed of doubt/ absence of choice – else any invocatory destiny will be, at best, fruitless. (At worst ... well, fill in your own nightmare/ your own screaming heebie-jeebies scenario).

RICK: ‘You’ must have been a particularly happy-go-lucky-camper all those years ago, as a ‘normal’ person, in order for that 4 hour PCE which set in motion all the events leading to the immolation of that identity to occur. No?

RICHARD: G’day Rick, I will first draw attention to the following:

• [Rick]: Richard, could you look into getting around to writing a response to my last message to you when it is you get the chance? It is a matter of relative urgency as well as significant personal import. Thank you in advance.

As your ‘particularly happy-go-lucky-camper’ query is your last message to me I can only presume it to be what is a matter of relative urgency, to you, as well as being of significant personal import; accordingly, I have located the following exchange which should provide a basis for what you are looking for:

• [Richard]: ‘... being normal is the pits only in comparison with being actually free from the human condition (just as being abnormal sucks only in contrast to an actual freedom from the human condition) and when I was a normal being, for 34 years, I lived what I then called a great life – it was not the pits by any description back then as I lived such a life to the full (with quite an adventurous lifestyle) – and when I was an abnormal being, for 11 years, I lived what I then called a glorious life ... and neither did it suck at the time as I lived that life to the full as well (with an even more adventurous lifestyle). [...]

• [Rick]: ‘Being that you called your 34 years of being normal a ‘great life’, (at least then) would you say (then or now) that you ‘enjoyed’ your life back then?

• [Richard]: ‘I would say (then) I enjoyed my life the best I could given that the human condition was endemic – as expressed in real-world phrases such as ‘make the best of a bad situation’ and ‘look on the bright side’ and ‘life is what you make of it’ and so on – as I was mostly optimistic, occasionally pessimistic, mostly cheerful, occasionally melancholy and so on and so on through all the moods ... and I would say (now), as I do say now on many an occasion in prior e-mails, I have been having a ball all along.

I have never not been here ... ‘twas all an illusion/ delusion. (Richard, Actual Freedom list, No. 27f, 24 Oct 2003).

Furthermore, as another poster has tried to make out that the identity in situ all those years ago experienced either a ‘dissatisfaction’, or ‘something like that’, or ‘maybe some other word’, with ‘his’ life this is as good an opportunity as any to set the record straight: ‘he’ had a great life, by peer-group standards (some of whom looked up to ‘him’ as an exemplar of a life well-lived and sought to emulate both ‘his’ lifestyle and manner of being); by age 33 ‘he’ had arrived at the summum bonum of the materialist/ humanist aspirations ... to wit: ‘he’ had a wife (who was just as randy as ‘he’ was), ‘he’ was the father of four young children (who were a delight to ‘him’ and fun to be with), ‘he’ owned a farmhouse (on a couple of acres in a rather picturesque rural landscape), ‘he’ owned a car (and all the typical accoutrements of successful living such as bed-room, lounge-room and dining-room suites plus a quadraphonic sound system, refrigerator, freezer, washing machine and all the rest); ‘he’ ran his own business (the dream of many a worker) and, moreover, ran it from home; furthermore, the business ‘he’ ran was as a practicing artist (and totally supported ‘himself’, ‘his’ wife, ‘his’ four children and all the above from sales of ‘his’ art, both locally and via public exhibitions).

And then, one fine afternoon relaxing at ease in a brick-paved patio ‘he’ had built outside the opening glass doors of ‘his’ kitchen, under the shade of luxuriant passionfruit vines on a trellis ‘he’ had also built, ‘he’ sat musing upon where ‘he’ had come from, where ‘he’ was at, and where ‘he’ was thus likely to be heading for. Basically, ‘he’ had arrived and all what remained was to finish renovating the farmhouse, buy a new car, and continue climbing the artistic ladder of success which ‘he’ was already firmly on the lower rungs of.

‘He’ idly mused of sailing away to some romantic tropical isle, where turquoise lagoons, coral sands, swaying palms and naked and nubile females were the order of the day (a fancy from pubescence onwards) and realised, with stunning clarity as ‘he’ sat there, amidst all ‘he’ had rightfully earned by due diligence, that wherever ‘he’ went, whatever lifestyle ‘he’ lived, whomever ‘he’ may live with, ‘he’ would be taking ‘him’ along as well ... and, whatever, wherever, however and whomever, it may be ‘he’ would go, do, associate with and so on – no matter how fancifully perfect that may be – ‘he’ would, inevitably, stuff it up by ‘his’ very presence, ‘his’ very being.

So, far from being dissatisfied/ discontent/ whatever word, ‘he’ set out to magically transform the great life, that very adventurous life, which ‘he’ was already living, in the most radical way possible: by ceasing to stand in the way of the already always existing pristine paradise this verdant and azure planet actually is.

*

It is so strange, to the point of absurdity, that anyone can read into my life-story anything other than a vital interest in having only the very best which life has to offer ... to wit: an immaculate perfection.

Regards,
Richard.

December 31 2009

Subject: Re: A Long-Awaited Public Announcement

RICHARD: I wish to advise that The Actual Freedom Trust web site is currently undergoing review. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Please stand by for a long-awaited public announcement, due to be made early in the new year, the consequences of which will have far-reaching implications and ramifications for anyone vitally interested in both an actual and a virtual freedom from the human condition.

RICK: hahaha ... long-awaited. Haha you got that right, joe. Can’t wait, goddammit. haha. ‘Looking forward to it’ is an understatement of New York City proportions.

RICHARD: G’day, Rick

It would please me were you to be able to understand how I cannot say anything more, at this stage, than the above as it involves persons other than myself not currently here with me. Rest assured that were your ‘Looking forward to it’ to be an understatement of universal proportions, and not just that of a mere city, then the (brief) period of waiting would thence be all the more worthwhile.

Regards,
Richard.

Continued on Direct Route: Rick

P.S.: On the off-chance you have concerns about being on your own, in a foreign land and meeting with persons you evidently still have some questions about, by all means bring a travelling companion, a trusted friend, a confidante perhaps, with you – someone like [Respondent No. 2] for instance – so as to set your mind at rest, in advance, about any such otherwise undue matters. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 19 December 2011).

RICHARD: Well, just for starters it is, of course, entirely non-affective. (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 9 February 2012).

And here is a sample from that link:

• [Mattathias Schwartz]: ‘(...) Weev asked if I would attribute his comments to Memphis Two, the handle he used to troll Kathy Sierra, a blogger. Inspired by her touchy response to online commenters, Weev said he *‘dropped docs’* on Sierra, posting a *fabricated narrative* of her career alongside her *real Social Security number and address*. This was part of a larger trolling campaign* against Sierra, one that culminated in death threats. Weev says he has access to hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers. About a month later, he sent me mine’. [emphases added].

Where that troll says he ‘dropped docs’ he means stuff he made-up and typed out in a manner or format so as to look authentic then, complete with his ‘fabricated narrative’ and coupled with his victim’s ‘real Social Security number and address’, all he had to do was post it on the appropriate blog and sit back and watch the antics the peoples posting there then put themselves through.

It is well-worth a thorough reading.

Regards, Richard.

May 28 2013

Re: Is Actualism Safe?

RICK: Hi, Richard! You wrote below:

[Richard]: As the ‘above quoted material’ was written prior to the direct route being opened by Peter and Richard on Dec 29, 2009, via a personified pure intent becoming immanently accessible (i.e., not via a PCE), it is no longer necessary to even contemplate any such invocation of a rapid (and sudden) way with all its attendant ‘too much, too fast, too soon’ dangers. (Message No. 13582).(Richard, List D, No. 25, 25 May 2013).

The part where you said, ‘the direct route being opened by Peter and Richard ... *via a personified pure intent becoming immanently accessible*’: Would you mind re-wording that last bit?

RICHARD: G’day Rick, Sure ... first and foremost, as I am using the word immanently in its ‘existing or operating within; inherent’ meaning, then what I am indicating is that pure intent is no longer only accessible outside of the human condition (via a PCE) but nowadays also from within it (i.e., as a feeling ‘being’).

(The feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago – prior to late October/ early November 1992 – could only be existentially aware of pure intent via the direct/ immediate/ unmediated experiencing of the immaculate purity of the vast stillness of this actual universe’s physical infinitude (the ‘everywhere all at once’ source of everything apparent) because there had not previously been someone of sufficient naïveté to have enabled that pristine perfection into becoming purity personified).

Thus where I wrote, in an earlier post, that what the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago directly experienced as an ‘over-arching benevolence and benignity’ was immanently experienced by feeling-being ‘Peter’, on the 29th of December 2009, as [quote] ‘a sweetness that was palpable’ [endquote] – plus how ‘he’ was [quote] ‘literally being bathed in this sweetness’ [endquote] – it was because of that purity personified having recently become available to some select associates then living within the human condition (albeit out-from-control and/or in a different-way-of-being).

(Those quotes are from Peter’s report on the original ‘A Long-Awaited Public Announcement’ webpage).

And it was when feeling-being ‘Peter’, tenderly feeling the utmost caring possible via thereby being the near-innocence of naïveté, gained tactile confirmation of a flesh and blood body actually existing through a compliantly temporaneous rent in the veil – that flimsiest of films enclosing the real-world’s reality (which Peter spoke of the next night, regarding my physical presence, ‘as if behind a veil, i.e. not actually existing’) – that the direct route became opened-up.

(See the 2nd java script ‘Tool-Tip’ pop-up – a little yellow rectangle with a capital ‘R’ on it – in Peter’s report on the original ‘A Long-Awaited Public Announcement’ webpage for the full version of the above ‘tactile confirmation of a flesh and blood body actually existing’ account).

RICK: Incidentally, I cannot recall what you told me in-person about how and why or wherefrom you came to choose the words ‘pure intent’ when you coined that very term.

Would you mind sharing that again here?

RICHARD: ‘Twas the feeling-being in residence who named it thataway, circa January/ February 1981, upon realising how only that which was outside of ‘himself’ (i.e., outside of the human condition) could do the trick.

The choice of the word ‘pure’ should be self-explanatory by now, from all the above, and the word ‘intent’ is because of the agency-association it had, in ‘his’ mind, with the word ‘destiny’ ... as in, ‘escape one’s fate and achieve one’s destiny’.

Viz.:

• [Alan]: Am ‘I’ really willing to sacrifice ‘my’ self to allow this to happen?
• [Richard]: The question that the ‘I’ who was inhabiting this body back in 1981 asked was: ‘what am I saving myself for’?
• [Alan]: And yet, ‘I’ know it is inevitable, if I am to fulfil my destiny.
• [Richard]: Aye, to escape one’s fate and achieve one’s destiny is what one is alive for: being here – now – is the very reason one was born.
• [Alan]: As you said in one of your posts (approximately), it is an irresistible pull, a momentum and impetus which is not of ‘my’ doing.
• [Richard]: Yes, once altruistically set in motion, a momentum happens of its own accord. One knows, from the perfection of freedom from the human condition as evidenced in the PCE, that it is possible to live the actuality which is already always here.
What ‘I’ do is unreservedly allow ‘my’ eventual demise to occur ... pure intent, born out of the connection between one’s inherent naiveté and the perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe, will provide one with the necessary intestinal fortitude.
And once embarked upon the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom, you are not on your own: this perfection is with you all the way ... but if you waver, you are indeed doing it on your own ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 13 Dec 1999).

*

Speaking of [quote] ‘what you told me in-person’ [endquote] – you were hovering on the edges of experiencing that immanent purity (‘purity personified’) early one afternoon in the ‘Cafe 29 Restaurant’, after returning to the luncheon-table from the hotel’s restroom, where you explained (somewhat urgently) how the softness you were experiencing as stopping at my shirt needed to extend further out into the world at large as you had just then experienced, by stark contrast, the harshness of the real-world environment whilst weaving your way back betwixt the various tables at which the lunch-hour patrons were seated.

Regards, Richard.

February 5 2014

Subject: In Lieu of a PCE

RICK: Greetings Richard, in #16170, you referenced an instance written in 2000 wherein you wrote:

• [Richard]: (...) the essential character of the perfection of the infinitude of this universe which born me, is living me and will die me in due course, is enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. ‘I’ give ‘myself’ permission to allow this moment to live me (rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present) ... and let go the controls. (Richard, List D, Srinath, 5 January 2014).

If you have the time and inclination to respond, I would like to ask you whether you would reckon or agree that a sincere awareness (in lieu of a PCE) that this moment is already living me and that it is in fact an illusion that ‘I’ am in control could be consistently applied successfully in enabling ‘me’ to give ‘myself’ that permission to allow this moment to live me … and let go the controls?

Regards, Rick (Subject: Re: Log, 10 Jan 2014)

RICHARD: G’day Rick,

Your above query has been efficaciously engaging itself at the back of my mind, for these past three weeks or so, as any immediate reply of mine would have been, of course, that for me to publicly sanction anyone giving themself permission to allow this moment to live them – to let their life live itself (rather than ‘me’ trying in vain to live ‘my’ life perfectly) that is – without having first tapped into pure intent (via not only being naïve, which sincerity is the key to unlocking, but by then being able to naïvely ‘be’ the near-innocence of naïveté itself) would be starkly at odds with my oft-repeated caution to not proceed without that oh-so-essential ‘golden thread’ (aka ‘clew’) connection having first been established.

I had also re-read your referenced message (#15720) – which had already caught my attention when you first posted it – of which the essential section is as follows.

Viz.:

#15720
Date: 30 Oct 2013
From: Rick
Subject: Any Sense of Control is an Illusion

• [Rick]: [...].

For a brief instant, some of those heavy shackles fell off and I felt a relative release. The realization’s strength wasn’t sufficient however as I still was unable to break completely free, and those shackles that had fallen off temporarily, came right back on later on. [...].

As a [quote] ‘relative release’ [endquote] is self-evidently insufficient for the purpose thereof (no matter how sincere an awareness may be, that ‘this moment is already living me’/‘that it is in fact an illusion that ‘I’ am in control’) the main reason why your in-lieu-of-a-PCE query has been at the back of my mind, for these past three weeks or so, is because there may very well be a way for you to proceed ... provided, that is, there be a *freely-acquiescent willingness* on your part to experiment (as in, literally being a pioneer insofar no guarantees whatsoever are either being made or implied).

If so, I will first refer you to the first four paragraphs (plus Footnotes No. 1 & No. 2) of my response in Message No. 13604 as they are vital in regards a fully-informed comprehension of the very nature of this pioneering experiment.

Viz.:

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/actualfreedom/conversations/messages/13604 (Richard, List D, Rick, 28 May 2013).

Now, having read, comprehended, and fully grasped the import of those four paragraphs/those two footnotes, then what I am about to say next should make sense (if it does not then it would pay to re-read those paragraphs/ footnotes again).

The reason why that ‘golden thread/clew’ is oh-so-essential is because of agency inasmuch as, whilst identity is in the driver’s seat (i.e., is the agent), any such giving of permission to have the controls be let go of without same will result in said identity being an out of control agent in some ASC or another (bearing in mind the three primary psychoses – schizophrenia, mania, and depression – are also altered states) rather than in an out-from-control and/or different-way-of-being virtual freedom.

The first two paragraphs of the second part of my response in the above Message No. 13604 explains that the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, circa January/ February 1981, realised how only that which was outside of ‘himself’ (i.e., outside of the human condition) could do the trick and it is in this context that my last paragraph should make sense in regards the essential factor of this pioneering experiment

Viz.:

#13604
Date: Tue, 28 May 2013

From: Richard
Subject: Re: Is Actualism Safe?

• [Rick]: [...]. Incidentally, I cannot recall what you told me in-person about how and why or wherefrom you came to choose the words ‘pure intent’ when you coined that very term. Would you mind sharing that again here?
• [Richard]: ‘Twas the feeling-being in residence who named it thataway, circa January/February 1981, upon realising how only that which was outside of ‘himself’ (i.e., outside of the human condition) could do the trick.
The choice of the word ‘pure’ should be self-explanatory by now, from all the above, and the word ‘intent’ is because of the agency-association it had, in ‘his’ mind, with the word ‘destiny’ ... as in, ‘escape one’s fate and achieve one’s destiny’.
[...snip ‘fate/destiny’ quote...].
Speaking of [quote] ‘what you told me in-person’ [endquote]: you were hovering on the edges of experiencing that immanent purity (‘purity personified’) early one afternoon in the ‘Cafe 29 Restaurant’, after returning to the luncheon-table from the hotel’s restroom, where you explained (somewhat urgently) how the softness you were experiencing as stopping at my shirt needed to extend further out into the world at large as you had just then experienced, by stark contrast, the harshness of the real-world environment whilst weaving your way back betwixt the various tables at which the lunch-hour patrons were seated.

At this point I will refer you to the closing portion – especially the line beginning with the word ‘Enclosed’ – of your private email to Vineeto four days later (Sent: Saturday, 1 June 2013 8:52 PM) from a gmail account of yours.

Whilst re-reading it in conjunction with my last paragraph above – allowing the details and atmosphere of that moment exactly as *you* remember it to occupy your consciousness fully – try reaching down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself).

Having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre).

Here you will find yourself both likeable (very important) and liking ... for here lies naïveté.

Here is where you can, finally, be naïveté itself (the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’).

Now, whilst being naïveté itself – along with the details and atmosphere of that moment exactly as *you* remember it fully occupying your consciousness – you may very well be experiencing the softness enclosed in that shirt again (that immanent ‘purity personified’).

For here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness.

Here is where it is possible for that oh-so-essential ‘golden thread/clew’ connection to establish itself.

Regards,
Richard.

Jun 03 2015

Re: Moral cap and Authority

RICHARD to Claudiu: Yes, the better example [of where nothing was owned and where one could help oneself to whatever was available] is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: [...snip 155-word explanation...]. A footnote appended to a 2005 online response of mine is as good a place to start [on a further explanation] as any. Viz.:

The following day another respondent queried me on my above response; in my clarification I referred to the term ‘wage-slave’ as being, perhaps more correctly, ‘modern-day serfdom’. Viz.:

• [Co-Respondent]: Can it be that No. 83 wants to educate people to better enable them to contribute to humanity’s ease and quality of life?

• [Richard]: I responded to an explicit question as asked – whether a career as a science teacher is part of an instinctual duty to fulfil societal needs – couched in a related framework of both filial and tribal duty (born out of the instinctual passion of nurture, the religio-spiritual feeling of compassion, and particular cultural mores) plus a stated interest in obliterating same and my context-specific response (no, a career as a science teacher is not necessarily part of an instinctual duty to fulfil societal needs) and my pragmatic explication of the very least one needs to ‘earn a living’ for (the basic necessities of life) and how those essential requirements are chiefly obtained these days (via modern-day serfdom) and, in a footnote, why they cannot be obtained directly (the era of the hunter-gatherer is virtually over because of enforced exclusive property-rights claims) is to that query and that query alone. (Richard, Actual Freedom list, No. 78b, 8 February 2005).

Although, for persons taking out a house-mortgage – typically, these days, over a 30-35 year period (whereafter they find they have paid for three-four houses, whilst only being allocated one, per favour usurious banking guilds having usurped, several centuries ago[†], the sovereign power of a nation-state to emit debt-free monies) – the term ‘indentured servitude’ may be even more appropriate.

[†]Footnote: Mr. Alexander Del Mar, in his engaging 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’, details how the ‘exclusive prerogative of the State’ to emit money was usurped, during the reign of Charles II (and due, in no small part, to his infatuation with a notorious married woman), with the ‘surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7’ whereby ‘the most powerful instrument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects, was surrendered or sold for a song to a class of usurers, in whose hands it has remained ever since’. A 1983 reprint can be read online here:

https://archive.org/stream/AlexanderDelMar/AlexanderDelMar-AHistoryOfMonetaryCrimes1899-1983-Reprint/page/3/mode/1up

If anything is a classic case of ‘read it and weep’ then this is it in spades. The role played by Ms. Barbara Villiers – a.k.a., Mrs. Barbara Palmers, Countess of Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, Baroness Nonsuch – or, rather, the allure her feminine charms had for the profligate Charles II, starts properly on Page 26. Were her story better-known she may very well become celebrated as the patron-saint of banksters world-wide (if not already, albeit secretly, that is).

Even more to the point: the fact that modern-day women demanded the legal right to enter into such ‘indentured servitude’ alongside the traditional male ‘bread-winner’ – most family-households these days are double-income households (hence necessitating publicly-subsidised childcare facilities) – and thus further enriching that already obscenely-rich ‘class of usurers’ amply demonstrates how the ‘peasant-mentality’ is not a male-only trait.

[...snip remainder of post...] Richard, List D, Claudiu3 18 May 2015).

P.S.: Just for the record here is the quote in full from Page 7 of that 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’ (with emphases added). Viz.:

• [Mr. Alexander Del Mar]: From the remotest time to the seventeenth century of our aera, the right to coin money and to regulate its value (by giving it denominations) and by limiting or increasing the quantity of it in circulation, *was the exclusive prerogative of the State*. In 1604, in the celebrated case of the Mixed Moneys, this prerogative was affirmed under such extraordinary circumstances and with such an overwhelming array of judicial and forensic authority as to occasion alarm to the moneyed classes of England, who at once sought the means to overthrow it. These they found in the demands of the East India Company, the corruption of Parliament the profligacy of Charles II., and the influence of Barbara Villiers. The result was the surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7: and thus a prerogative, which, next to the right of peace or war, is *the most powerful instrument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects*, was surrendered or sold for a song to a class of usurers, in whose hands it has remained ever since. In framing the American mint-laws of 1790-2, Mr. Hamilton, a young man (then 33 years of age), and wholly unaware of the character or bearings of this English legislation, innocently copied it and caused it to be incorporated in the laws of the United States, where it still remains, *an obstacle to the equitable distribution of wealth and a menace to public prosperity*. (...).

RICK: Hi Richard, firstly, thank you for posting, as it means a lot to read anything new from you.

RICHARD: G’day Rick,

Your appreciation is very welcome ... and especially so as you have previously demonstrated just how much all the words issuing forth from this keyboard mean to you.

For just one instance:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/actualfreedom/conversations/messages/155xx

RICK: Secondly, the semi-sidebar you included regarding Alexander Del Mar’s expose of how the contemporary global monetary system came to pass was well received. I was able to read that first half of Del Mar’s book via the link you provided and found it intriguing in its accounts of a philandering monarch, parliamentary payola and powerful monopolists surreptitiously changing the course of history.

RICHARD: I am pleased you took the opportunity to peruse Mr. Alexander Del Mar’s well-researched account – and his other books are as equally well-researched – as it is essential to familiarise oneself with how the current situation came about in order to comprehend not only why the world-wide monetary system is failing so spectacularly but also why no-one is able to prevent it from doing so, no matter how many ‘fixes’ are put in place, due to that fatal flaw at the very heart of the system itself which predetermines, by the inexorable laws of mathematics, its ultimate failure.

Mr. Alexander Del Mar was not only exceptionally knowledgeable but was very perspicacious as well – and this back in the days when gold (and silver) further complicated comprehension – inasmuch he is the earliest writer I have come across thus far, in all my reading on monetary matters, who understood what money actually is.

RICK: Interestingly enough, it seems possible that in the not too distant future things may end up going back to how they were before Barbara. Just 60 days ago (Mar 20, 2015), Frosti Sigurjónsson submitted a report commissioned by the Prime Minister of Iceland, strongly advocating for the return to a monetary system wherein the State – not private banks – control the supply of money.

RICHARD: Yes, I downloaded that report shortly after it became available online – it attracted some considerable attention at the time – and the presentation of its subject matter is refreshingly easy to read.

If the country’s voters were to give the go-ahead – and were those globalised vested interests, whose monetary machinations begat this blowback, to accommodate its institution – it would certainly make for an informative case study (for as far as it goes).

RICK: The 2008 Global Financial Crisis seems to have provided enough of a shake-up that economists and governments are taking a careful look at the system, and are earnestly playing around with the idea of a complete revamp.

RICHARD: Yes ... although I am yet to see a modern-day monetary reform proposition which advocates a ‘complete revamp’ (then again, I have not researched the topic exhaustively, of course).

RICK: This likely-to-be-influential report, which is the culmination of reformation advocacy from well-regarded macroeconomical thinkers such as Alexander Del Mar and, more recently, Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof of the IMF, can be found online here in PDF: www.forsaetisraduneyti.is/media/Skyrslur/monetary-reform.pdf

An advantage claimed for re-establishing a sovereign monetary system, after a 350 year hiatus, would be the ability to effectively stem the outrageous and ever-increasing debts of persons and nations.

RICHARD: Hmm ... the word ‘stem’, in this type of context, has two meanings.

Viz.:

A nation-state, with its sovereign power to emit debt-free money re-established, might stem those ever-increasing (i.e., usurious) debts to a certain extent – although that would be dependent, of course, upon how effective governmental agencies were at allocating a necessarily-limited amount of new (publicly-created) money – but usury itself has to cease forever, via a set-in-concrete constitutional amendment, along with a corresponding debt-repudiation (of all outstanding obligations incurred with privately-created money), for effective stemming to take place.

As the topic under discussion is ‘peasant-mentality’ it is pertinent to note how modern-day propositions for monetary reform, such as this ‘Sovereign Monetary System’, would have all those trillions upon trillions of dollars in outstanding world-wide debt continue to be serviced, despite having been incurred with privately-created money (i.e., with what is, in effect, counterfeit money), and thus further enriching an already obscenely-rich elite few only this time around with publicly-created money.

Could it be, then, that those ‘economists and governments’ you referred to, further above, who are ‘taking a careful look at the system’ are looking at it with a peasant mentality?

RICK: It is summarily explained in the report, on page 70, that: ‘in the current system the bulk of new money is created when banks make loans. This means that in order to create new money for a growing economy, households and businesses must go deeper in debt. The money supply is currently issued only when households or businesses take on loans from the banks, placing an unnecessary burden of interest payment on society. In a Sovereign Money System, the CBI can create the money that is needed by the economy. No one has to take on more debt to create sovereign money. When the CBI creates sovereign money the government can spend or invest it into circulation. Furthermore, the transition to a Sovereign Money System implies a very significant one time lowering of public debt.’

RICHARD: Two things stand out (in regards the topic of ‘peasant-mentality’) in those last two sentences: (1) ... or ‘invest it into circulation’, and (2) ... a ‘one time lowering of public debt’.

RICK: Less debt, more prosperity, greater economic stability, less disenfranchisement.

RICHARD: Why not, instead, no debt, prosperity for all, complete economic stability, no disfranchisement?

RICK: Of course, there are arguments made that point out disadvantages of a sovereign money system, or propose advantages of another system, or make argument for the status quo.

RICHARD: More than a few of those arguments stem from a lack of understanding of what money actually is (especially obvious in those promoting a return to some form of gold-standard) and, thus, what it serves as.

RESPONDENT: Ultimately, it does not matter the degree of privilege one attains from a society, under any given social system.

Being alive is a privilege no society could ever grant. [Addendum: Ultimately speaking, of course].

RICHARD: Yes, and this is the nub of the matter (of course) because any societal privilege attained – being gained or granted at the expense of one’s fellow humans – has to be maintained.

RICK: PS: The influential article, ‘The Chicago Plan Revisited’ authored by Benes and Kumhof (2013), may be worth a glance as well: http://web.stanford.edu/~kumhof/chicago.pdf.

The article is an updated monetary reform proposal from the original ‘Chicago Plan’ proposed back during the Great Depression era (given its name from a professor at the University of Chicago who was its staunchest advocate), highly regarded at the time but lost traction until the idea of reformation started being countenanced again due to the 2008 GFC.

RICHARD: The original plan was a memorandum of half-a-dozen pages, put together by several economists at that university, and circulated confidentially amongst maybe 40 or so people. Eventually, Prof. Irving Fisher (who received the first Ph.D. in economics granted by Yale University back in 1891) became the plan’s leading proponent, bringing it to the attention of then-President of the USA at least two occasions, but initially he kept his endorsement of it confidential.

For such is the conformist state of affairs in academia-land.

As the further above ‘Sovereign Monetary System’, which is based upon ‘The Chicago Plan’ (but incorporating several elements from other developments), is a much easier read then a summary, such as at Wikipedia, is probably sufficient for the purpose thereof.

Viz.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicago_Plan_Revisited

As a matter of related interest: the writings of Mr. Clifford Douglas (1879-1952), who is known for the ‘Social Credit Movement’ his books and lectures spawned, are also an aid to understanding what money actually is and, thus, what it serves as. There is an explanatory article about ‘Social Credit’ here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit

For further reading, if required, five of his published books (1920-24) can be read online here:

https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL1711626A/C._H._Douglas

And a copy of his 1924 ‘Social Credit’ book is here;

https://archive.org/stream/SocialCredit/Social_Credit#page/n0/mode/1up

Lastly, as the above books can be a trifle long-winded, a contemporary book (1920) by Mr. Charles Hattersley might be helpful:

https://archive.org/stream/communityscredit00hattrich#page/n4/mode/1up

(If nothing else these older books convey the way in which certain people experienced the prevailing world-view of those times in a manner history books cannot).

‘Tis great having these older, out of print books, available online (they have been especially useful in my studies of the Pāli Canon) and I have not needed to use the local Library/Inter-Library service for years.

Regards,
Richard.

January 21 2016

Re: Goodbye

RICHARD: (...). In biblical terms tit-for-tat is equivalent to the aggressive Old Testament ‘an eye for an eye’ and ‘a tooth for a tooth’ (as contrasted to the pacifistic New Testament ‘turn the other cheek’ injunction).

When the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body in 1981 took ‘his’ first steps on what has become known as the wide and wondrous path (to an actual freedom from the human condition/ from identity in toto) ‘he’ quickly ascertained that whilst ‘he’ could not stop people giving offence and/or being offensive what ‘he’ could stop was taking offence and/or being retributively offensive as ‘he’ knew of the tit-for-tat nature of the ever-recurring wars between neighbouring tribes in the New Guinea Highlands (what they called ‘pay-back’ warfare) which stretched back millennia in the past such that the specific nature of initial offence was lost forever in the mists of time.

What ‘he’ also knew of was the archetypal ‘fightin’ & feudin’ hillbillies’ of North American myth and legend – who also typically knew not of what had started it all back whenever – and the break-up of the modern nation of Yugoslavia is another example of inherited ancestral scores being settled.

Obviously, someone had to ‘break the chain’ of such never-ending tit-for-tat feuding – else the term ‘mature adult’ was bereft of meaning – and ‘he’ could see that only unilateral action would do the trick. Accordingly, *’he’ conceived of being akin to a sponge* – absorbing all the rudeness, all the insults, all the slights (no knee-jerk reactionary rudeness; no retaliatory retorts; no keeping score, even, of past incidences) – *and duly ‘wringing it out’, if necessary, from time-to-time* were ‘he’ ever to become too full to absorb any more (which latter ploy was, curiously enough, never necessary). [emphases added by Rick].

And it worked!

A spelled-out example of this unilateral course of action is to be found in Message № 12901. (Richard, List D, No. 33, 13 January 2013). It starts thusly:

• [Richard]: ‘And then, in the late-afternoon of an otherwise typical summer’s day, in 1981, a six-foot-two man was standing in the kitchen of his ex-farmhouse being soundly berated, as was also typical, by his four-foot-eleven wife ...’.

(Richard, List D, Srid, 14 January 2016).

RICK: Do you by chance recall the specific way in which ‘he’ conceived to ‘wring out’ all that offense being absorbed?

RICHARD: G’day Rick,

My usage of the word ‘conceived’ in the above ‘tit-for-tat’ passage – specifically, in that illustrative paragraph (‘illustrative’ as per its ‘being akin to...’ wording) recalling how ‘not taking offence’ was envisioned by the identity in residence circa 1981 – is predicated upon what is conveyed by the term ‘Conceptual Art’.

Viz.:

• conceptual art (n.): art that is intended to convey an idea or concept to the perceiver and need not involve the creation or appreciation of a traditional art object such as a painting or sculpture. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).

• conceptual art (n.): art in which the idea or concept presented by the artist is considered more important than the finished product, if any such exists. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary).

Thus the short answer to your query is that the resident identity (who was successfully making a living as a practising artist at that time) viewed it as a figurative ‘wringing it out’ which, as already remarked upon parenthetically, turned out to be not necessary anyway.

As the above passage of mine generated more than a few posts it may be helpful to expand somewhat upon what that feeling-being was involved in (when 33-34 years of age) and what was going through ‘his’ mind at the time.

First, a brief background sketch: my (now-deceased) first wife had inherited a volatile temper from her father such as to erupt on a near-daily basis (sometimes violently) and, on occasion in the latter years of her marriage, several times a day. Indeed, the fundamental reason for eventually bringing the marriage to an end, after the eldest off-spring had matured sufficiently to have left the family home to make his own way in the world, was because of choosing to no longer live in what is nowadays known as ‘an abusive relationship’ (i.e., female-on-male domestic violence).

The two of us had a long-running difference of opinion as to how to deal with moods, in general, and with temper, in particular. I had been raised in the ‘stiff upper-lip’ school of thought (a.k.a. being suppressive of anti-social feelings) while she was of the ‘blow off steam’ variety (a.k.a. being expressive of same) inasmuch she firmly believed that ‘bottling it all up’ was futile, as the ‘cork would pop’ eventually, anyway, and how it was better to ‘let it all out in the moment’ before it could build up into ‘a full head of steam’. As the resident identity back then would tend to lose ‘his’ temper only every 4-6 weeks, or so, on average – usually over something quite trivial, mind you, whilst valiantly tolerating the major issues – and then juvenilely sulk for several days afterwards, because of having succumbed in such a puerile manner yet again, ‘he’ was not inclined to join the ‘let it all out in the moment’ school of thought despite being oft-times urged and constantly provoked to do so.

Consequently, as ‘his’ intent was to imitate the actual, as experienced six months prior in a memorable four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE), it soon became apparent to ‘him’ that only the third alternative to either suppressing or expressing would do the trick. Upon advising ‘his’ wife of fifteen years standing of the course of action ‘he’ was putting into place – and likening ‘himself’ to being akin to a sponge and soaking up any and all offence given (i.e., by thus not taking offence in the first place ‘he’ would no longer be putting ‘himself’ into the suppression-expression dichotomy) as a descriptive analogy – she of course asked what ‘he’ intended to do upon becoming saturated which, to her mind, was the equivalent of her ‘full head of steam’ analogy.

As the two analogies have no such equivalence – the one stems from taking offence (thereby generating ‘steam’ aplenty) and the other is founded upon not taking offence (which obviates any such generative process) – then the ‘wring it out’ ploy, which ‘he’ conceived of in reply to her query, never eventuated in practice as the amount of offensive language/ offensive gestures thusly absorbable approaches a near-infinite quantity.

Thus the longer answer to your query is that because ‘he’ was focussed upon not taking offence in the first place – which mostly forestalled having to be either suppressive or expressive – ‘his’ conceptualisation did not include any specific way or particular means by which a ‘wring out’ would take place. The quite magical outcome depicted in Message № 12901, by somehow managing to be neither suppressive nor expressive after having succumbed once more despite such focus, was a serendipitous discovery. (Not having The Actual Freedom Trust web site for field-tested accounts of what worked to deliver the goods, and instead being drawn ineluctably to ‘his’ destiny by pure intent, resulted in many a disclosure of that ilk occurring as the wide and wondrous path became more and more apparent).

As I have written elsewhere about a preliminary step towards ‘not taking offence in the first place’, without explicitly naming it as such, it may very well be worthwhile to re-present it here.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 39]: (...) as long as we are alive in this world there are going to be things happen that are unacceptable. These are the things we have to learn to accept. The question I am asking is: Can I accept the unacceptable? (...).
• [Richard]: Given that people are as-they-are and that the world is as-it-is there are more than a few things which are ‘unacceptable’ (child abuse, rape, murder, torture and so on). What worked for me twenty-odd years ago, as a preliminary step, was to rephrase the question so that it makes sense (rather than vainly apply any of those unliveable ‘unconditional acceptance’ type injunctions):
     • Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?
This way intelligence need not be compromised ... intelligence will no longer be crippled. (Richard, List B, No. 39a, 18 August 2001).

Quite frankly, any such ‘unconditional acceptance’ type admonishments are an insult to intelligence (to utilise a cliché) as the bully-boys and feisty-femmes would rule the roost quick smart were all decent peoples worldwide ever to become dumbed-down enough to adopt those unrealistic maxims uttered by anti-life entities only too-willing to sacrifice their host bodies for a noble cause.

*

Before proceeding any further it is important to note that the entire giving offence/ taking offence phenomenon is a very big deal, in regards to human relations, for the denizens of the ‘real world’ – in centuries past potentially-lethal duels would be fought between offendant and offendee (with ‘seconds’ in attendance to ensure agreed-upon rules of engagement were observed) as a means of obtaining the restitution of honour for the offended party – as is also evidenced by the increased incidence of modern-day ‘hate-crimes’ legislation whereby the concept of lèse-majesté, first attested to in the era of the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE), is extended to regular citizens such that the heavy hand of the state (as states typically monopolise violence) can nowadays be called upon to exact retribution on behalf of the offendee.

By way of illustration, as to just how big a deal that giving offence/ taking offence phenomenon is in the ‘real world’, it might be useful to draw attention (as it may have escaped notice due to extensive media focus directed elsewhere) to how the triggering-event which set off all the subsequent multifaceted sequences of events which, arguably, eventually led to the potentially-historical episodes of el-taḥarrush el-ginsy (a.k.a. sexual molestation/ harassment of women in public) by 1,000-plus malefactors in the city centre of Köln, Deutschland (a.k.a. Cologne, Germany) on New Year’s Eve 2015-2016, was the public humiliation, on December 17, 2010, of a 26-year-old male street vendor of fruit and vegetables in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, by a 45-year-old female municipal official who (allegedly) made a slur against his deceased father, spat at him, slapped him on the face, cast aside his unlicensed produce-barrow and confiscated his weighing scales. According to his mother, ‘It got to him deep inside, it hurt his pride’ (i.e., to be humiliated, publicly, by a female).

*

Thus the identity in situ at the beginning of 1981 went right to the heart of the matter from the get-go. The crux of the issue is that, as each and every identity is a feeling-being at root (i.e., ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’), all identities are hereditarily programmed by blind nature to emotionally-passionally react, instantaneously, to affectively-felt and/or psychically-intuited threats to their existence because, at their very core, it is ‘being’ itself at dire risk (i.e., ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself).

(It is a genetic hangover from long-ago ancestral eras already many millions of years old when sapience emerged around 100+ millennia ago – as a boy, a youth, a young man, hunting game in the wild plus interacting daily with domesticated animals, revealed to me how they relied as much, if not more, on what was known generically as a ‘sixth sense’ as upon an acute sense of smell, alert hearing and keen eyesight in order to evade predation – which has become a liability, for modern-day humankind, rather than the asset it once was).

Now, because the pure consciousness experience (PCE) – where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is in abeyance (unlike an altered state of consciousness (ASC) where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being reigns supreme as ‘Being’ itself) for the duration – experientially demonstrates how each and every identity has no existence whatsoever in actuality then any such offensiveness (previously experienced as affective/ psychic threats to ‘my’ existence/ to ‘my’ very ‘being’) loses its existential sting/ no longer has its dire effect.

Indeed, ‘all the rudeness, all the insults, all the slights’, and etcetera, soon become rather exquisite aids in ferreting-out any aspects of ‘me’ which have eluded exposure through hands-on inspection up till then (hence my parenthetical remark about the metaphorical ‘wringing it out’ ploy not being necessary, in practice, and my further above observation regarding the absorbability of offensive language/ offensive gestures being nigh-on infinite in regards quantity).

*

Incidentally, the reason why the nursery-doggerel ‘sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me’ was largely ineffectual in childhood is because truisms such as that do not take into account the affective vibes and psychic currents – transmitted instantaneously via the psychic web connecting all feeling-beings regardless of spatial extension – which are part-and-parcel of the very act of giving offence/ being offensive and the vital element in the entire giving offence/ taking offence phenomenon which bedevils life in the ‘real world’.

As I have oft-times said, it is the psychic web where the real power-play takes place. Howsoever, once the practice of not taking offence becomes habituated even the most virulent affective/ psychic power-play – being thereby recognised for what it is – can thus be weathered with relative ease.

Being alive is a fascinating adventure, eh?

Regards,
Richard.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

P.S.: Whilst conducting a world-wide search for published works containing the word ‘offendee’ – which does not feature in regular dictionaries – I came across the following dissertation for a PhD. in ‘Religion-Social Ethics’ which examines and extols the virtues of forgiveness (after first having taken offence).

Viz.:

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=SIZ3DPNUokkC&q=offendee

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