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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Superstition
RESPONDENT: [So there’s the normal intelligence (crippled) in NCE, the supreme intelligence (which is an extraordinarily crippled normal intelligence) in ASC and freed intelligence in PCE]. How can you explain synchronicity events then? RICHARD: The way I can explain the simultaneous occurrence of events, which appear meaningfully related in the real-world but have no discoverable causal connection, is quite simple ... in a word: happenstance. RESPONDENT: Is it not a simplistic dismissal? RICHARD: As correlation in no way demonstrates the validity of an ‘acausal connecting principle’ (aka a pattern of connection that is not explained by causality) then ... no. The word ‘apophenia’ – the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data – which was coined in 1958 by Mr. Klaus Conrad (who defined it as the ‘unmotivated seeing of connections’ accompanied by a ‘specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness’) is a far more useful term than the word ‘synchronicity’ (a term coined by Mr. Carl Jung to describe the way an abstract world of potential, a psychophysical world where psyche and matter are connected in an undifferentiated unity and called the ‘unus mundus’ in the Middle Ages, operates and out of which causeless new creations can occur) to describe the simultaneous occurrence of events which, whilst having no discoverable causal connection, appear meaningfully related for certain peoples. Incidentally, although Mr. Klaus Conrad originally described the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis it has become more widely used to refer to that tendency in any person at all without necessarily implying the presence of neurological or mental illness or disorder. * RESPONDENT: I can understand synchronicity explained in regards to the human/ animal world by the existence of the collective unconscious, but I can’t explain the seeing/forecasting of future events exclusively related to inanimate matter as the work of the human/animal psychic web. Synchronicity in regards to the inanimate matter can only satisfactorily be explained if matter has ‘psychic’, aka ‘electric’ properties (I can’t find a better word). RICHARD: Matter, be it either in its mass phase or energy phase, has no psychic properties. For what it is worth: even though I use the term ‘psychic currents’, to refer to the extrasensory transmissions conducted via affective vibrations (colloquially known as ‘vibes’), and even though affective feelings are associated with electrochemical activity in brain scans, it does not necessarily mean they are electric currents ... and neither does it necessarily mean they are currents of water or air, either, as that word (literally meaning ‘to run’ as in ‘flowing’ or ‘streaming’) is nothing more than a convenient word to utilise. RESPONDENT: I still can’t comprehend how something that is not actual can have effects at an actual distance of 150 miles. RICHARD: Perhaps if you were to keep it simple to start off with, by examining what is colloquially known as ‘vibes’ (emotional/passional feelings), it may be more readily comprehended: another person’s anger, for instance, can be affectively felt from a near-distance and, as such, can have an effect (and, quite often, the desired effect) despite the intervening physical space ... and the same applies to love (for another instance) or virtually any other strongly-felt feeling. By going deeper into those affective feelings it can be found that they swirl around, as it were, forming a whirlpool or an eddy, somewhat analogous to a whirlpool or an eddy of water or air, creating a centre (a vortex) which is the very stuff of the swirling (a vortex of water or air is the very swirling water or air) as the one is not distinct from the other ... ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. It is that vortex which is the (affective) force known as a psychic force. RESPONDENT: What is the ‘medium’ via which these psychic currents are transmitted if not the physical one? RICHARD: It is a psychic medium ... a vortical force-field, so to speak. RESPONDENT: Is there a notable difference between psychic vibes and psychic currents? RICHARD: Only in regards to a difference in the range of their effect. RESPONDENT: It seems kind of narrow minded to dismiss all paranormal interests as mere ‘superstition’. RICHARD: Oh? May I ask why living according to facts rather than fantasy is being ‘narrow-minded’ – according to you – and which ‘paranormal interests’ would you say are actual ... physical as distinct from metaphysical? * RESPONDENT: I think the idea of freedom should include freedom to indulge imagination ... to extend the boundaries of this ‘flesh and blood sensual body’ with keen discernment. RICHARD: The idea of freedom can include anything you so desire – it being but an idea – but an actual freedom means an actual peace-on-earth as this body ... in this lifetime and here on this earth where all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides are happening. And you obviously have a different meaning to ‘keen discernment’ than the ‘Oxford Dictionary’, for example, (‘the act of distinguishing; a distinction; the faculty of discerning, discrimination; keenness of intellectual perception; insight, astute, shrewd, ingenious, clever, intelligent, perceptive, sharp, perspicacious, penetrating, critical, percipient, judicious, sensitive, subtle, prudent, sound, wise, aware, knowing, sagacious, sapient) because ‘to extend the boundaries of the body’ means that other people will call you ‘overweight’ (if polite) or ‘fatty’ or ‘tubby’ and so on. * RESPONDENT: There is ample hodgepodge out there ... but throw it all out? RICHARD: Yep ... unless you want all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides to go on forever and a day. * RESPONDENT: Fascination doesn’t seem like such a hindrance of freedom to me. RICHARD: Indeed not ... it is vital. If you do not become fascinated with the ‘workings’ of yourself and your fellow human beings (your condition is the human condition and your psyche is the human psyche) there will never be peace-on-earth. * RESPONDENT: And to say ‘we are the only ones who espouse ...’ seems kind of egotistical. I’m obviously puzzling over the dubious merits of such an attitude. RICHARD: You may stop puzzling for there are no merits – dubious or otherwise – to such an attitude ... because it is not an attitude. It would be a statement of fact ... if I could ascertain where you gained the quote from, that is. I would be delighted to meet someone else who experiences life like I do ... I have scoured the books for eighteen years and found zilch. Do you know of anyone? * RESPONDENT: I’m suspicious of the idea that death is a finality ... too much stuff suggests otherwise. RICHARD: First: it is not an idea ... it is a fact. Secondly: what ‘stuff’ suggests otherwise ... and is this ‘stuff’ factual? * RESPONDENT: It’s hard to believe that all the mystic traditions are just a vast conspiracy to suppress and enslave souls. RICHARD: Nobody I know of is asking you to believe anything ... read and find out for yourself. It is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche. Discovering the source of the Nile or climbing Mount Everest – or whatever physical venture – pales into insignificance when compared to the thrill of finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being. I am having so much fun ... those middle-aged or elderly people who bemoan their ‘lost youth’ leave me astonished. Back then I was – basically – lost, lonely, frightened and confused. Accordingly, I set out on what was to become the most marvellous escapade possible. As soon as I understood that there was nobody stopping me but myself, I had the autonomy to inquire, to seek, to investigate and to explore. As soon as I realised nobody was standing in the way but myself, that realisation became an actualisation and I was free to encounter, to uncover, to discover and to find the ‘secret to life’ or the ‘meaning of life’ or the ‘riddle of existence’, or the ‘purpose of the universe’ or whatever one’s quest may be called. To dare to be me – to be what-I-am as an actuality – rather than the who ‘I’ was or the who ‘I’ am or the who ‘I’ will be, calls for an audacity unparalleled in the annals of history ... or one’s personal history, at least. To seek and to find; to explore and uncover; to investigate and discover ... these actions are the very stuff of life! * RESPONDENT: Has Richard ever met Michael Roads, a fellow Australian, author of works such as Talking With Nature, Journey into Nature, Journey into Oneness? Michael is as unpretentious as they come ... and I find a lot expansiveness in his perspective on life. Check him out and give me a critique if you please. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... Mr. Michael Roads, a native of the United Kingdom, emigrated to Australia with his wife, Ms. Treenie Roads, in 1964 and farmed in Tasmania for twelve years; in the process he became known as an expert in organic farming and a consultant in the field. They are the founders of the ‘Homeland Community’ – based on the model of Findhorn in Scotland – and now live in Queensland, Australia. His ‘Journey Into Nature; A Spiritual Adventure Into Oneness’ is said by some to be a spiritual journey as profound as Mr. Carlos Castaneda’s in ‘The Teachings of Don Juan’ or Mr. Dan Millman’s in ‘Way of the Peaceful Warrior’. Mr. Michael Roads explores the nature of energy, the foundations of personal power, and the frontiers of reality. Through a dazzling series of visions, he goes beyond communicating with nature and becomes blackberry, dog, and crystal. He enters the ‘Guidestone’ and encounters the ‘Power Gates’; he accepts the ‘Great God Pan’ as his guide; he merges consciousness with water; he experiences the worldwide effects of pesticides on the plant kingdom and he fulfils the destiny of a dolphin as it travels from death to rebirth. In ‘Journey Into Oneness; A Spiritual Odyssey’ he has passed the initiations posed by the ‘Great God Pan’, and has earned the right in consciousness to enter into the non-physical realms. He says: ‘when I stepped through those Doors, linear time and normal reality ended. Everything of the known was abruptly replaced by an absolute unknown. Time, if it had any meaning at all, was spherical, so that all points of a sphere were the same time – always.’ He then finds himself in his light body and, catapulted through one spiritual doorway after another, he meets numerous ‘Beings’ who expand his awareness of the dimensions of reality. Step-by-step, he is led to the greatest understanding of his journey into ‘Oneness’. As ‘Consciousness’, he evolves from gas, to mineral, to plant, to animal, and finally to human, experiencing the pull of ‘Self’ to express itself through physical form. He explores the infinite universe and comes to know the meaning of ‘I AM THAT I AM’. His ‘Into A Timeless Realm; A Metaphysical Adventure’ was followed by ‘Getting There’ which established this ‘New Age writer’s entry into ‘Visionary Fiction’ ... according to a critic. Mr. Michael Roads is not even enlightened ... let alone actually free of the human condition. His contribution to peace-on-earth is zero ... and may even help pull western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, back into the supernatural ... as the Eastern mystical thought that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more and more widespread. May I ask? Have you read much of what is available on the three linked actual freedom web pages yet? RESPONDENT: Let’s examine this. You claim that they had no way of knowing otherwise that the earth was flat because they lived before modern technology. (paraphrased) Method’s of knowing otherwise: Method 1: (Aristotelian) Observe that the sails of ships precede the bodies as they return to port. Method 2: (Aristotelian) Observe that the stars change at different latitudes, and specifically the angle of the Northern point is the latitude. Method 3: (Aristotelian) Observe that the shape of the shadow cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse that is curved as a circle. Method 4: (Sumerian and Babylonian) Observe the nemesis effect. For each star or meridian, there is a nemesis star or meridian which is never visible at the same time, like Clark Kent and Superman, and that the angles of right ascension of stars is constant so that as one star rises another sets. Method 5: Observe the longitudinal libration of the moon. In the early evening of a full moon, the moon’s face is slightly turned one way exposing more of one side and by morning it has turned slightly to the other side hiding some of the earlier features and exposing new ones. Think of this one as showing one ‘ear’ and then the other ‘ear’. (The observable features of the moon are about 55% and the unobservable ‘dark side’ about 45%, although at any given instant the maximum visible is 50% by definition). RICHARD: Aye ... these observations certainly did lead different people at different places to posit the notion that the earth was not flat. That is clear ... but positing a theory is not knowing it as a fact, now, is it? Also ‘Genesis’ was written down – from oral tradition stretching way back into mythical times – somewhere around 900 BC and Mr. Aristotle the Stagirite was flexing his brain cells around 300 BC ... 600 years later. The Babylonians and Sumerians did not get their act together until the fourth century BC either. And it is handy to reflect upon the fact that life then is not as it is now with instant communication and vast libraries and compulsory schooling for all children and so on. Ideas travelled slowly and superstition had a far stronger grip on people’s minds (though there are some that would give lie to this) and heaps of other differences in world-views and mind-sets. All this is worth bearing in mind as you are doing your scholarly research and applying your modern-day thesis to the past with the added clarity of hind-sight. Apart from that, what you are doing is somewhat akin to arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. In other
words: what does it matter? The writers of ‘The Bible’ believed the earth to be flat ... and believers will not listen to reason. You may
re-visit and re-write history on unto your old age ... but your re-write will not alter what actually happened in the minds of the people back then
one little bit. Why, it is even so today ... No. 23 will not accept satellite photographs. * RICHARD: The ‘Holy Bible’ can stand or fall (usually fall) on its own merits ... it is so shot full of contradictions, distortions and blatant untruths that its lack of credibility does not need a shove from discreditability due to some ‘Myth of the Flat-Earthers Myth’. Besides, I am rather partial to that title ‘God’s Flat-Earth Wisdom’ ... because it is the fact. RESPONDENT: I don’t think so. I sincerely believe ‘God’s Flat-Earth Wisdom’ goes far beyond it being a ‘fact’. I believe that it is part of a kind of religious thinking, the religion of the progressive development to modern enlightenment. It is part of a mythological framework, replete with icons, and requisite demagoguery. RICHARD: When the ‘Holy Bible’ seriously expects people to believe that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene bodily ascended
through the physical clouds to sit in the ‘Biblical Heaven’ on the right hand of ‘God the Father’ – and modern space exploration explodes
that imagery – is that not an example of the uselessness of following their specious advice? And is this release from superstition not more ‘enlightening’
than holding on to a ‘mythological framework, replete with icons, and requisite demagoguery’? Where in history did that imagery set people
free? On the contrary ... it has enslaved people. It has had 5,000 years to do the trick ... and there is as still as much suffering now as then. RESPONDENT: The fact is that it says practically nothing at all on the subject of whether the earth was round or flat. RICHARD: Yes, I know ... I clearly stated that (above) in my post to you. Let me copy and paste what I wrote for you: [Richard]: ‘While the Bible nowhere states categorically that the earth is flat, numerous Old Testament verses clearly show that the ancient Hebrews were flat-earthers’. Also you found it important to quote Isaiah to me to show that the ‘The Bible’ did say so. Let me copy and paste what you wrote for you: [Respondent]: ‘There is a place in the bible where the world is described as a globe’. RESPONDENT: You are creating something out of your own conjecture that is not there. RICHARD: Not so ... I have not conjectured anything at all that was not there already. It was all those pesky Christians that believed for centuries that the earth was flat ... that was what this thread was originally about, remember? No. 23 said that he did not ‘buy Richard’s pitch about the world being globular with his fancy satellite imagery and all’ ... to which I replied: ‘Of course you would not. It is well-known that Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene was a flat-earth god ... even though his ‘Father Who Art In Heaven’ was omniscient and all that. Space exploration has poked a rather large hole in the veracity of ‘God’s Word’. I am simply going by what they believed and having fun with it. RESPONDENT: What ‘Christians’ have said or believed is irrelevant to the subject. RICHARD: Oh, really ... thus spake No. 21! What the Christians believed and said is central to this subject ... centuries and centuries of superstitious ignorance ruled the West. It took years of matter-of-fact science to release humans from the Christian yoke. (Although it may have all been in vain ... Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural ... as the Eastern mystical thought that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more and more widespread.) RESPONDENT: They most likely believed whatever their ‘scientists’ told them as we do now. RICHARD: Not so ... they believed ‘God’s Word’ ... literally. So, do you really want to get into a discussion about the veracity of ‘God’s Word’? * RESPONDENT: There is such a thing as the genuine thing. RICHARD: It does not exist. It has never existed and never will exist. It is but a product of a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity called ego. RESPONDENT: How many have found what you claim to have found? RICHARD: No one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about last year when I first came onto the Internet. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here. RESPONDENT: If not many, why would you assume that many would find the true way in traditional religion? RICHARD: Hmm ... look, if you think it is important for me to understand this sentence then perhaps you could re-write it in a way that makes sense? Because as it reads you seem to be implying that traditional religion is valid ... by your use of the word ‘true’ . All traditional religion is superstition. RESPONDENT: I will explain it. You claim that not many have found it through religion. RICHARD: I have claimed that ‘not many’ have found the massive delusion called ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. There have been .000001 of the population according to a recent estimate. But no one has found innocence ... the ‘state of grace’ is a pseudo-innocence and not an actual innocence. I said that there is no one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain, to have discovered this actual innocence. RESPONDENT: Neither have many found it your way. RICHARD: Nobody has found it my way. This is but a scant six years old ... and I only went public last year. RESPONDENT: So what does that really mean? RICHARD: Well far be it from me to read your mind, but you do seem to be trying to make out a case – for what I have
discovered – to be as difficult to attain to as the pseudo-innocence of traditional religion. As traditional religion has been public for at
least the five thousand years of recorded history – and I have been public for just over one year – then I consider that you are drawing a very
long bow in order to make a very weak and ineffectual point. I could be wrong, however, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to follow the
workings of your mind. RESPONDENT: Do not use most of those words, just oneness (being whole, perfect). RICHARD: Of course my list of spiritual words was not meant to be all-encompassing ... or all-exclusive, for that matter. I simply typed out a grab-bag of commonly used metaphysical words as a demonstration only. But upon closer examination of some of your previous posts one finds that you use more than ‘just oneness’. For example: [...] * And more to the point, that hoary one about ‘He who is truly wise knows nothing’ is trotted out by you ad infinitum:
It has now getting to the ridiculous stage in the West that one who actually knows something and can speak clearly about it is
dismissed for wordiness. A recent post of mine received the supposedly well-considered condemnation that it was: ‘full of the anguish of thought’.
It behoves us to understand what is going on, because Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance,
is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural ... as the Eastern mystical thought that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise
intelligent people is becoming more and more widespread. RESPONDENT: To what do you attribute your finding this transformation? Can it be cultivated? RICHARD: In 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. I knew that I would revert to normal ... and that ‘I’ would do whatever to live this perfection in this life-time. Once experienced – and remembered – it is impossible to settle for second-best. With a pure intent – born out of the PCE – patience and perseverance and diligence and application were ‘my’ forte. ‘I’ set out to undo this emotional-mental construct. This separative ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ – a psychological and psychic identity – is forever alienated from one’s body and from the world of people, things and events. To end the separative social identity, ‘I’ whittled away at all the social mores and psittacisms ... those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. ‘I’ examined all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. ‘I’ become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to control what ‘I’ found myself to be ... a wayward ego and compliant soul careering around in confusion and illusion. As ‘mature adult’, ‘I’ was actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning psychological ‘ego’ overlaying a psychic ‘being’. Then what ‘I’ did, voluntarily and willingly, was to press the button which precipitated an – oft-times alarming but always thrilling – momentum that resulted in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What ‘I’ did was that ‘I’ dedicated myself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and intentionally sacrificed ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entity residing inside this body – ‘I’ was gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ was what ‘I’ held most dear. The extinction of identity – both an ego death and a soul death – is a welcome release into actuality. I am finally here. I discover that I have always been here ... I have never been anywhere else for there is nowhere else ... except illusion and into delusion. The ‘everyday reality’ and the ‘Greater Reality’ had their existence only in ‘my’ fertile imagination. Only this, the actual world, genuinely exists. This exquisite surprise brings with it delightful relief at the moment of mutation ... life is perfect after all. But, then again, has one not suspected this to be so all along? At the moment of freedom from the Human Condition there is a clear sense of ‘I have always known this’. Doubt is banished forever ... no more verification is required. All is self-evidently pure and perfect. Everything is indeed well. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon oneself and others. * RESPONDENT: It is possible for thought through repetition to generate a windowless centre and if that occurs there is belief that there is no freedom from the known. RICHARD: What is ‘the known’ for you? Reality? What is ‘the unknown’ for you? The ‘Greater
Reality’? Can ‘the unknown’ ever be known? If you say no, then you are in the company of the mystics ... who revere ignorance and
would have the west revert to superstition. Freedom from the real-world enables this actual world to be known ... and it is a joy and a delight to
know this actual world. * RESPONDENT: Time is linear, chronological movement. What is timeless or eternal is free of that movement. RICHARD: Time as measured on this planet – localised time – is chronological. Day becomes night which becomes day ... and spring becomes summer and so on. Hop into a rocket and move to what is popularly called ‘outer space’ or ‘deep space’ and leave your clocks behind ... you may then come closer to understanding eternity as meaning ‘all time’ (to actually understand you will have to leave your self behind with the clocks). RESPONDENT: It has nothing to do with infinite continuity. RICHARD: Actuality has everything to do with infinite continuity. Yet even modern physicists have fallen for this mystical cosmogony ... the ‘timeless and spaceless nothingness’ that the ‘Big Bang’ came out of. The nineteenth century was hopefully called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until eastern mystics came onto the world stage with spiritual enlightenment busily being hell-bent on returning a burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of superstition. RESPONDENT: The ‘known’ physical universe is a construction of thought through memory. RICHARD: Unless you are indulging in solipsism RESPONDENT: Individuality of Richard is the effect of his learning, his environment, etc. and so is mine. RICHARD: Richard’s idiosyncrasies are ‘the effect of his learning, his environment, etc.’ ... the ‘individuality of Richard’ is the effect of the elimination of all the genetically-inherited instinctual passions ... the extinction of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ that is umpteen thousands of years old and carried in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova. RESPONDENT: The two are not the same: cannot be the same. Even identical twins must be different because they are exposed to different stimuli and hence grow differently. RICHARD: The study of identical twins certainly demonstrates that differences such as gender, racial and era cultural beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and so on are the result of ‘different stimuli’ ... one such study was of orphaned twins accidentally separated at birth in the immediate post-war Germany: one was sent for adoption in the USA and the other was raised in the West German culture. When re-united in their thirties there was the one who was self-righteously triumphant at winning a just war ... whilst the other carried the self-deprecatory guilt at waging an unjust war. Such superficial studies are used to justify the ‘nurture versus nature’ view-point over the ‘nature versus nurture’ view-point ... but I ask: where in all this is their precious ‘individuality’? How is any person ‘unique’ when each and every one of the perhaps 10.0 billion human beings – 6.0 billion human beings
now living and the maybe 4.0 billion now dead – on this otherwise fair earth that we all live on are all robotically run by being, at root, a ‘self’
born of the same-same instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire genetically endowed by blind nature? * RESPONDENT: The entity that thus grasps the ‘order’ is but that ‘order’ itself. RICHARD: Aye ... ‘I am God’ or ‘I am That’ or (if one is really cunning): ‘There is only That’. RESPONDENT: That is the best that I can do so far in explaining the observer-observed paradigm in Quantum Mechanics/Bohmian terms so far. This view also seems to tally with the Vedantic view of the world (the inner reality being the same as the outer reality) that I posted on this forum two days back. RICHARD: But of course it ‘seems to tally with the Vedantic view of the world’ because it is derived from Vedanta. In the west, the nineteenth century was optimistically called the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (knowledge enlightenment) until eastern mystics came onto the world stage at the turn of the century with spiritual enlightenment ... busily being hell-bent on returning a burgeoning thoughtful part of humankind to the darkness of superstition. Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the Eastern mystical thought and belief that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more widespread. Prior to the recent influx of eastern philosophy, if one realised that ‘I am God’, one would have been institutionalised ... and, to some degree, rightly so. One has stepped out of an illusion, only to wind up living in a delusion. However, the trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity and/or Judaism is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the west have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the western mind that is desperately looking for answers. The Christian and/or Judaic conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the east. It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking divine immortality ... to the detriment of life on earth. ‘Implicate order’, for example, is simply another term for ‘God’ (aka ‘The Truth’). At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. I have been to India to see for myself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living ... and it is hideous. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing. RICHARD: The self is what one is born with – it equates with being born in Sin, or being on the wheel of Karma – and can be dispensed with by a curious irrevocable occurrence, which eliminates the entire psyche, was triggered by an intense urge to evince and demonstrate what the universe was evidently capable of manifesting: the utter best in purity and perfection which all humans could have ever longed for. Blind nature, which endows all creatures with the instinct for survival, has now been superseded, paving the way for a truly edified species of fellow human beings to live together in complete peace and harmony. The way of becoming actually free is both simple and practical. One starts by dismantling the sense of social identity that has been overlaid, from birth onward, over the innate self until one is virtually free from all the social mores and psittacisms ... those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. One can be virtually free from all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to produce what one thinks and feels oneself to be ... a wayward social identity careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity. However, it is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is. One can become virtually free from all the insidious feelings – the emotions and passions – that fuel the mind and give credence to all the illusions and delusions and fantasies and hallucinations that masquerade as visions of ‘The Truth’. One can become virtually free of all that which has encumbered humans with misery and despair and live in a state of virtual freedom ... which is beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Then, and only then, can the day of destiny dawn wherein one becomes actually free. One will have obtained release from one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny ... and the world will be all the better for it. This, the third alternative, is now possible. RESPONDENT: Richard, really I am not looking at all for holes on your comments, but just interested on listening how do you see those three questions, if is there any comment you see important for sharing with anyone who is waiting just for listening what you say, doesn’t matter if you comment on facts or ideas. Reading your post aroused those three questions in my mind for point to you, that’s all. If you have a bit of time, I would thank yours comments. RICHARD: There are currently 6.0 billion human minds (a human mind is a human brain in action in a human skull) on this planet. All human brains are basically of the same physiological structure and have enough, more or less similar, traits in common when in operation to reasonably deduce that, giving due allowance for gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams, as well as personal idiosyncrasies, there is essentially no fundamental difference between each and every person’s mind ... yet this similarity does not constitute a ‘collective mind’. It is the gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams that create the ‘collective mind’ imprint that is built upon the genetically inherited rudimentary animal self that stretches back to the dawn of the human species. The situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies is called the ‘Human Condition’ ... a well-established philosophical term that refers the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. Therefore, there is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Cultural contingency controls – morals and ethics and so on – seek to contain the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality and so on fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained at the point of a gun anywhere in the world ... thus it is all too easy to posit both an ‘individual conscience’ and a ‘collective conscience’. Yet the knowledge of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and the feeling of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are inculcated from birth onward through reward and punishment. One’s identity is largely made up of beliefs ... beliefs and feelings. In fact, a belief is an emotion-backed thought. The vast majority of the beliefs that one carries are not invented by oneself; they were imbibed with the mother’s milk, as it were, and added to thereupon up to the present day. They are inherited beliefs, put into the child with love and fear – reward and punishment – and added to as an adult out of awe and dread in respect to some spurious ‘after-life’ ... the carrot and the stick. It behoves one to examine each and every belief – especially those that pass for ‘truths’ – and watch them disappear out of one’s life forever. It is no wonder human beings are such a desperate lot. Beliefs and feelings are the bane of humankind ... they have been so instrumental in killing, maiming, torturing and otherwise causing such pain and suffering since the dawn of human history, that one wonders that they are given any credence at all these days. It is so liberating to be free of beliefs – of believing itself – and feelings that I recommend their elimination, through dissolution of the rudimentary animal self that all sentient beings are born with, with the utmost dispatch. It is scientifically demonstrable that everyone has the same genetically-inherited blue-print ... human beings are all born
with the same basic instincts like fear and aggression and nurture and desire and, no matter which culture one was socialised into being a member
of, all peoples throughout the world thus have the same emotions and passions and calentures. For example, malice and sorrow is malice and sorrow
wherever it lives. There is no difference between English malice and sorrow and American malice and sorrow and Indian malice and sorrow and so on.
Or any of the cultivated derivatives – as a broad generalisation, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage,
sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself – whatever the
emotion or passion or calenture may be, they all have a global incidence. Add into the picture such affectively-based activity as imagination,
visualisation, conceptualisation, believing, trusting, hoping, having faith and so forth – giving rise to epiphenomenon like prescience,
clairvoyance, telepathy, divination But, step out of the Human Condition – as this flesh and body only being apperceptively aware – leaving the instinct-derived ‘self’ behind in the Land of Lament where it belongs, and immediately, the picture changes ... where there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’, none of the above characteristics apply. Where there are no basic instincts; where there are no emotions or passions or calentures; where there is no cerebral energisation; where there is no psychic manifestations, there is no identity whatsoever. With all these genetically inherited traits null and void, there is now a freed human mind ... an autonomous human individual. No more ‘monkey business’. * RICHARD: It seems to me that your focus, in this and your previous two posts, is as follows (and please correct it where you deem necessary):
Therefore, you asked me for my input on three questions:
My response was as follows (but numbered with your question this time):
Thus what I wrote about was that in actuality (please note ‘in actuality’) there is no collective mind ... as opposed to the imprint (please note ‘the imprint’) of a collective mind that is created by the gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams that create the ‘collective mind’ imprint that is built upon the genetically inherited rudimentary animal self that stretches back to the dawn of the human species.
Thus what I wrote about was that it is all too easy to posit both an ‘individual conscience’ and a ‘collective
conscience’ despite the fact that the knowledge of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and the feeling of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are inculcated
from birth onward through reward and punishment. RESPONDENT: I respectfully offer, it may better serve our mutual effort for Peace to more closely examine those thoughts that are prematurely accusatory and intentionally alienating than those that are aimed, although perhaps not accurately but always benevolently, toward describing our underlying unity. RICHARD: My thoughts are not ‘prematurely accusatory’ ... they are premeditated and well-informed statements of fact. Also, they are not intentionally alienating ... defensiveness on the part of the recipient is a by-product of the fact speaking for itself. And whilst you are aiming to preserve your ego – and expand it like all get-out – I do not see even a smidgen of ‘our underlying unity’. Also, despite your best efforts to appear ‘always benevolent’, your expanded ego shines through your posts in all its glory. However, we are fellow human beings and there is always the chance that you may come to your senses and realise that the wisdom of the East is not worth the rice-paper it is written on. They have an appalling track-record in the humanitarian stakes in spite of the fact of their claim to have had ‘The Truth’ for thousands of years. Now, while I know that the West has not done much better, at least the standard of living is somewhat higher and ‘Human Rights’ do get given some credence. It behoves us to understand what is going on, because Western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural ... as the Eastern mystical thought that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people is becoming more and more widespread. RESPONDENT: I am honoured that you gave attention to my post. RICHARD: I sincerely doubt it ... but you already know that, don’t you? RESPONDENT: Perhaps you have to understand the context of the axiom, to fully appreciate what Descartes meant. RICHARD: [...] So, why does he consider intuition indubitable? Mr. René Descartes distinguished two sources of knowledge: intuition and deduction. Intuition, to him, is an unmediated mental seeing or direct apprehension of something experienced. The truth of the proposition ‘I think’ is guaranteed by the intuition one has of one’s own experience of thinking. One might think that the proposition ‘I am’ is guaranteed by deduction, as is suggested by the ‘ergo’. In ‘Objections and Replies’ (1642), however, Mr. René Descartes explicitly says that the certainty of ‘I am’ is also based upon intuition. He finds certainty in the intuition that when he is thinking, even if deceived, he exists: The cogito of ‘cogito, ergo sum’ is a logically self-evident truth that gives certain knowledge of a particular thing’s existence – that is, one’s self – but the cogito justifies accepting as certain only the existence of the person who thinks it. Because if all one ever knew for certain was that one exists – and if one adhered to Mr. René Descartes’ method of doubting all that is uncertain – then one would be reduced to solipsism, the view that nothing exists but one’s individual self and thoughts. To escape this, he argues that all ideas that are as clear and distinct as the cogito must be true, for, if they were not, the cogito also, as a member of the class of clear and distinct ideas, could be doubted. Since ‘I think, therefore I am’ cannot be doubted, all clear and distinct ideas must be true! What persuades him to reason like this? It is pertinent that he repeated the ontological argument first presented by Mr. Anselm (1033-1109), claiming to establish the existence of God ‘a priori’, that is, in a way that depends only on the concept of God, and draws on no factual premise. The ontological argument is thus contrasted with various cosmological arguments, which seek to demonstrate the existence of God as creator from the existence or order of the natural world. Mr. Anselm’s argument held that God is the most perfect conceivable being; that a God who exists in reality is of greater perfection than one who exists only as a conception in man’s mind; and that therefore God, as maximally perfect, must exist in reality. Thus Mr. René Descartes begins with the statement that he has an innate idea of God as a perfect being and then intuits that God necessarily exists, because, if he did not, he would not be perfect. This ontological proof for the existence of God is at the heart of Mr. René Descartes’ rationalism, for it establishes certain knowledge about an existing thing solely on the basis of reasoning from innate ideas, with no help from sensory experience. This is the source of his intuition – which now starts to resemble faith – because he then argues that, because God is perfect, he does not deceive human beings; therefore the world exists. Thus Mr. René Descartes claims to have given metaphysical foundations for the existence of his own mind, of God, and of the world. Mr. René Descartes then establishes that each mind is a spiritual substance and each body a part of one material substance. The mind or soul is immortal because it is unextended and cannot be broken into parts, as can extended bodies ... and on and on he goes. The persistence of identity even unto immortality in an immaterial after-life is legendary, by now. So much for his ‘intuition’ being indubitable, eh? There is a circularity inherent in Mr. René Descartes’ reasoning: To know that God exists, one must trust the clear and distinct idea of God; but, to know that clear and distinct ideas are true, one must know that God exists and does not deceive man. Mr. René Descartes, the rationalist, failed to see that his ontologically-inspired ‘intuitional’ proof is word-magic based on the superstition that a metaphysical reality can be determined – and validated as being fact – by ideas and thoughts. It is, as I said before, nothing but twaddle dressed up as sagacity. * RICHARD: Mr. René Descartes, the rationalist, failed to see that his ontologically-inspired ‘intuitional’ proof is word-magic based on the superstition that a metaphysical reality can be determined – and validated as being fact – by ideas and thoughts. It is, as I said before, nothing but twaddle dressed up as sagacity. RESPONDENT: Dear Richard, no reason to expand on the original opinion. It is neither twaddle nor sagacity. RICHARD: Dear No. 20, no reason to pretend to be agnostic on this issue ... what you say (below) gives lie to your statement that it is ‘neither twaddle nor sagacity’. RESPONDENT: But you have now brought into our purview the entire argument, whereas I wanted you to focus on the original maxim, for it is a striking one. RICHARD: What is so striking about it? It is but a valiant – though ultimately futile – and vainglorious attempt to prop up selfish idealism. RESPONDENT: And I felt and still feel that you have not given this maxim its due. RICHARD: Yet the maxim attempts to validate the alien entity – self – and build a metaphysics on a lie! RESPONDENT: If you are interested in giving the maxim its full force, then don’t get lost in the rest of the Cartesian metaphysics. RICHARD: Oh, I am not lost in ‘Cartesian metaphysics’ ... I merely presented it so as to show the context that he derived his maxim from. ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ is the self-seeking justification for his metaphysics.
RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED 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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