Category Archives: METAPHYSICAL EXERCISES

DREAMING

Dreaming is a creative state of consciousness, a threshold of psychic activity in which we throw off usual restrictions to use our most basic abilities and realize our true independence from three-dimensional form. In dreams, we write the script for our daily lives and perceive other levels of existence that our physical focus usually obscures.

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The dream universe has its own basic laws or “root assumptions” — mental equivalents to our laws of gravity, space and time. In other worlds, dream reality only seems discordant or meaningless because we judge it according to physical laws rather than by the rules that apply within it.

Dreams, then, are not just imaginative indigestion or psychic chaos. We are not temporarily insane when we dream, as some theorists maintain. To the contrary, we may be far more sane and alert during some dream states than we  are ordinarily. Certainly we are more creative. We may even be more “alive,” as we will see from our own experiences.

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Many dreams are precognitive, and personal experience is a great convincer we discover for ourselves — recalled, and dated and recorded dreams and then checked them against events.

We think that we are only conscious while we are awake. We assume ourselves unconscious when we sleep. In Freud’s terminology, the dice are indeed loaded on the side of the conscious mind. But pretend for a moment that we are looking at this situation from the other side. Pretend that while we are in the dream state we are concerned with the problem of physical consciousness and existence. From the viewpoint, the picture is entirely different, for we are indeed conscious when we sleep.

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The locations that we visit while dreaming are as real to us then as physical locations are to us in the waking state. What we have is this: In the waking state, the whole self is focused toward physical reality, but in the dreaming state, it is focused in a different dimension. It is every bit as conscious and aware.

If we have little memory of our dream locations when we are awaken, then remember that we are in  the dream situation. Both are legitimate and both are realities. When the body lies in bed, it is separated by a vast distance from the dream location in which the dreaming self may dwell. But this, dear friends, has nothing to do with space, for the dream location exists simultaneously with the room in which the body sleeps.

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There is, of course, an apparent contradiction here, but it is only apparent, our dilemma being this: If we have another self-conscious self, then why aren’t we aware of it? Pretend that you are some weird creature with two faces. One face looks out upon one world [the dream reality] and one face looks out upon another world [the physical one].

Imagine further this poor creature having a brain to go with each face, and each brain interprets reality in terms of the world it looks upon. Yet the two worlds are different, and more the creatures are Siamese twins. At the same time, imagine that these two creatures are really one, but with definite parts equipped to handle two entirely different worlds.

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The subconscious, in this rather ludicrous analogy, would exist between the two brains and would enable the creature to operate as a single entity. At the same time — and this is the difficult part to explain — neither of the two faces would ever ‘see’ the other’s world. They would not be aware of each other, yet each would be fully conscious.

Flying dreams are not all disguised sexual fantasies, as Freud maintained, for example. In many of them we are flying, and the destinations we reach are quite physical.

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My future blogs will be mainly concerned with events that happen precisely when consciousness is turned away from normal objective life. Much more is involved than even the nature of the dream state and man’s and woman’s fascinating ability to withdraw consciousness from the body. These phenomena are only evidences of the greater creative consciousness that is inherent and active in each of us — the interior universe of which we know so little.

It often seems to me that only when we close our eyes do we begin to see, literally and figuratively. This is somewhat of an exaggeration, and yet my experience as a metaphysical student makes several facts clear. Our ordinary consciousness shows us only one specific view of reality. When we learn to close off our senses momentarily and change the focus of awareness, other quite valid glimpses of an interior universe begin to show themselves.

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This is most obvious in dreaming, of course. Dreams may well represent us at our most creative, for not only do we process the past days activities, but we also choose tomorrow’s events from the limitless probable actions that are presented to us while the waking self is still.

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It’s tricky to play hopscotch back and forth between various stages of consciousness, to travel into little-understood subjective realms, explore those inner landscapes and return with any clear clues as to their nature. Such explorations are highly important, however, because they bring us in touch with that basic inner reality that underlies our individual conscious thought and existence and which is the bedrock of our civilization.

Dreams Promote The Conservation of Knowledge

In a fashion dreams allow for a curious mixture of learning processes, while at the same time serving to introduce surprising developments.  That is, dreams promote the conservation of knowledge. They are an aid in the development of skills. They conserve available information by weaving it through the other structures of our experience.

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At the same time dreams have their startling qualities, promoting the insertion of unexpected developments, in which case they appear to deal with the breaking down of conserving principles. In this fashion they also mirror our more exterior behavior, conserving what we know already, and yet introducing new patterns, new spontaneous orders that would sometimes seem to run against conservative issues. They reinforce the past, for example, when we dream of past situations. They also seem to undermine the integrity of the past by showing it to us in an unfamiliar light, mixing it with present and future tints.

Many people might wish that I would add many more methods to help study dreams and their nature. In such a manner also dreams suggest nature’s spontaneous order throughout the centuries, and allow us to look at the species in a truer light. Our lives, for that matter, are dependent upon the curious relationships that are involved: We would not get by for one day if the conserving principles and the unexpected did not exist exactly as they do. There is so much we must learn and remember in life, and so much we must spontaneously forget — otherwise, creation itself would be relatively meaningless.

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We perform far more actions in a day than we recall. We do not know how many times we lift our arms, speak a sentence, think a thought. With the kind of consciousness we possess, an over-reliance upon conserving principles could then end up in a reduction of life’s processes.

In private living and in so-called evolutionary terms, however, life necessitates the intrusion of surprising events, unforeseen actions, leaps of insight or behavior that could not come alone from any accumulation of knowledge or simple conservation of energy, but seem to suggest entirely different new developments.

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Dreams often serve as the frameworks in which sudden remarkable insights appear that later enable a man or a woman to envision the world in a way that was not earlier predictable. The world’s activities always include the insertion of surprising events. This is true at all levels of nature, from microscopic to macroscopic. All systems are open. The theories of both evolutionists and creationists strongly suggest and reinforce beliefs in the consecutive nature of time, and in a universe that begins in such-and-such an end — but there are horizontal events that appear in the true activity of nature, and there are horizontal entry points and exit points in all experience. These allow for the insertion of unofficial new energy, the introduction of surprising events.

Again, it is very difficult to explain such activities. They can affect — and do affect — the rise and fall of civilizations. We are used to reading nature in a particular manner, however, and to experiencing events at surface levels. We are naturally equipped to appreciate a far richer blend, and as I have often blogged about, we are ourselves possessed of a need to explore the subjective ramifications of our existence.

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As “the times change” we tire of the old ways. Even our dreams begin to reach out into new avenues. The relationships between nature’s natural conservative behavior and nature’s need for innovation are stretched. More and more remarkable events begin to occur, both in private and mass experience, in physical and mental behavior, in the events, say, of both stars and human.

People want, then, to throw aside old structures of belief. They yearn, often without recognizing it, for the remembered knowledge of early childhood, when it seems that they experienced for a time a dimension of experience in which the unexpected was taken for granted, when “magical events” occurred quite naturally. They begin to look at the structure of their lives in a different fashion, that attempts to evoke from nature, and from their own natures, some graceful effortlessness, some freedom nearly forgotten. They begin to turn toward a more natural and a more magical approach to their own lives. At such times the conserving elements in nature and in society itself do not seem as strong as they did before. Surprising events that were earlier covered up or ignored seem to appear with greater frequency, and everywhere a new sense of quickness and acceleration gradually alters the expectations of people in regard to the events of their own lives, and to the behavior they expect from others. We are in such times now.

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Old honored explanations suddenly appear withered. Unpredictable remarkable events seem more possible. The kind of work done in dreams to some extent is changed. They become more active, more intrusive. Predictable behavior, even of the natural elements, is harder to take for granted. Man begins to sense more and more at such times the vaster dimensions of behavior upon which that appearance of conservation resides.

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There are considerable changes that occur under such conditions in man’s and woman’s subjective experience. Man’s and woman’s feelings about himself or herself change too, but little by little his and her trust in unpredictability grows. He or she is more willing to assign himself or herself to it. The species begins its own kind of psychic migration. It begins to sense within itself further frontiers and the possibilities for action. It begins to yearn for the exploration of mental lands, and it sends portions of itself out as couriers.

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I am that kind of courier. There are many in all areas of life, and this involves not only an excitement on the part of our  own species, but the same kind of curiosity and excitement on the part of other species as well. Again, most difficult to explain — but those connections that exist between all species and the environment are themselves affected. The horizontal communications stretch and expand to allow for later developments in terms of probabilities, for consciousness always knows itself in more than one context, and it is possible for nature to experience itself in ways that would seem to be most improbable when the properties of  conservation and learning are at their strongest spring.

The Importance of dreams in Man’s and Woman’s early background

We have a hand in forming all events to one extent or another, and at certain levels we are therefore involved in the construction of those global events that affect the world, whether they be of so-called natural or cultural nature.

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In earlier blogs I spoke about the importance of dreams in man’s and woman’s early background, and their importance to us as a species. Here, I want to stress the social aspects of dreams, and to point out the fact that dreams also show us some of the processes that are involved in the actual formation of physical events: We actually come into an event, therefore, long before the event physically happens, at other levels of consciousness, and a good deal of this prior activity takes place in the state of dreaming.

Yet (remembering what I said about seeming contradictions), our dreams are also social events of a kind, and the state of dreaming can almost be thought of as an inner public forum in which each man and woman has his or her say, and in which each opinion, however unpopular, is taken into consideration. If we want to call any one dream event a private event, then I would have to tell you that that private event actually was our personal contribution to a larger multi-sided dream event, many-layered, so that one level might deal with the interests of a group to which we belong — say our family, or our political or religious organization — reaching ” outward” to the realm of national government and world affairs. As our private conscious life is lived in a community setting of one kind or another as a rule, so do our dreams take place in the same context, so that as we dream for ourselves, to some extent we also dream for our own family, for our community, and for the world.

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Group dreaming was at one time taken for granted as a natural human characteristic — in a tribe, for example, when new locations were being sought, perhaps in time of drought. The various tribal members would have dreams tackling whatever aspect of the problem that best suited his or her abilities and personal intents. The dreamers would travel our-of-body in various directions to see the extent of drought conditions, and to ascertain the best direction for the tribe to take in any needed migration.

Their dreams would then be shared by the tribe in the morning, or at special meetings, when each dreamer would give a rendition of the dream or dreams that seemed to be involved. In the same way, other dreamers would simply check with the dreamers of other villages or tribes — perhaps a hundred or even more miles distant. Some such dreams were extremely direct, others were clothed in symbolism according to the style of the dreamer, but in any case the dream was understood to have a public significance as well as a private one.

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The same still applies, though often dreams themselves are forgotten. Instead, for example, for news or for advice we watch our morning television news, which provides us with a kind of manufactured dream that to some extent technologically serves the same purpose. Instead of sending camera-people and newspaper people to the farthest corners of the earth, early man and woman sent out aspects of himself or herself to gather the news and to form it into dream dramas. Oftentimes much of the material did not need to become conscious: It was “unconsciously” acted upon, turned directly into action. Now such dreams simply act as backup systems, rising to the fore whenever they are needed. their purpose was and is to increase the value fulfillment of the species and of the individual.

Psychologists often speak of the needs of man and woman. Here I would like to speak instead of the pleasures of man and woman, for one of the distinguishing characteristics of value fulfillment is its pleasurable effect. It is not so much that man and woman or nature seeks to satisfy needs, but to exuberantly, rambunctiously seek pleasure — and through following its pleasure each organism finds and satisfies its need as well. Far more is involved in the experience of life, however, than the satisfaction of bare needs, for life is everywhere possessed with a desire toward quality — a quality that acknowledges the affirming characteristics of pleasure itself.

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In our terms, there is a great pleasure to be found in both work and play, in excitement and calm, in exertion and rest, yet the word “pleasure” itself has often fallen into disrepute, and is frowned at by the virtuous.

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One of the main purposes of dreaming, therefore, is to increase man’s and woman’s pleasure, which means to increase the quality of living itself. Dreams are mental work and play combined, psychic and emotional rich creative dramas. They also involved us in the most productive of enterprises as we begin to play with versions of events that are being considered for physical actualization, as one a personal level we “view” the probable events which our family, tribe, organization, community and country will actualize.

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As physical creatures we human beings cannot bear to directly confront the basic, vast, unimaginably awesome and creative consciousness of All That Is. Since we cannot bear to face the great raw power of nuclear energy either. I’ve often wondered whether this situation can be an earthly, imperfect and time-ridden analog to what must be the reality of All That Is.

Inner Backbone of Perception

Master events are those that most significantly affect our system of reality, even though the original action was not physical but took place in the inner dimension. Most events appear both in time and out of it, their action distributed between an inner and outer field of expression. Usually we are aware only of events’ exterior cores. The inner processes escape us.

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Those inner processes, however, also give many clues as to some native abilities that we have used “in the past” as a species. Those inner processes do sometimes emerge, then. Here is an example.

One morning last weekend I found myself suddenly and vividly thinking about some married friends. They lived out of town, separated in time by a drive of approximately half and hour. I found myself wishing that the friends lived closer, and I was suddenly filled with a desire to see them. I imagined the couple at the house, and surprised myself by thinking that I might indeed call them later in the day and invite them down for the evening, even though my wife and I had both decided against guests that weekend.

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Furthermore, I did not like the idea of making an invitation on such short notice. Then I became aware that those particular thoughts were intrusive, completely out of context with my immediately previous ones, for only a moment or so earlier I had been congratulating myself precisely because I had made no plans for the day or evening at all that would involve guests or other such activities. Very shortly I forgot the entire affair. Then, however, about fifteen minutes later I found the same ideas returning, this time more intently.

They lasted perhaps five minutes, I noticed them and forgot them once again. This time, however, I decided not to call my friends, and I went about my business. In about a half hour the same mental activity returned, and, finding myself struck by this, I mentioned the episode to my wife and again cast it from my mind.

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By the time it was somewhat later in the day, my wife and I ate lunch, and the mail arrived. There was a letter written the morning before (on Friday) by the same friends that had been so much in my mind. They mentioned going on a trip (on Saturday), and specifically asked if they could visit that same afternoon. From the way the letter was written, it seemed as if the friends — call them Drick and Dorian — had already started on their journey that (Saturday) morning, and would stop in San Diego on their return much later toward evening. There was no time to answer the letter, of course.

Drick and Dorian would be on the road, it seemed, unreachable by cellphone, though they had included the number of their answering service, and had also written that they would call before leaving — yet no such call had been received.

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It would be simple enough, of course, to ascribe my thoughts and feelings to more coincidence. I remembered the vividness of my feelings at the time, however. It looked as if Drick and Dorian were indeed going to arrive almost as it I had in fact called and invited them. That evening the visit did take place. Actually, some work had prevented the couple from leaving when they intended. Instead, they called later from their home to say that they were just beginning their trip, and would stop on their way.

I was well prepared for the call by then, and for the visit. Now the visit and my earlier feelings and thoughts were part of the same event, except that my subjective experience gave me clues as to the inner processes by which all events take place. More is involved than simple question: Did I perceive the visit precognitively? More is involved than the question: Did I perceive my information directly from the minds of my friends, or from the letter itself, which had already been mailed, of course, and was on its way to me at the time?

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What we have is a kind of inner backbone of perception — a backup program, so to speak, an inner perceptive mechanism with its own precise psychological tuner that in one way or another operates within the field of our intent. This is somewhat like remote sensing, or like an interior radar equipment that operates in a psychological field of attention, so that we are somewhat aware of the existence of certain events that concern us as they come into the closet range of probabilities with which we are connected.

In a certain fashion we “step into the event” at that level. We accept or reject it as a probability. We make certain adjustments, perhaps altering particular details, but we step into and become part of the inner processes — affecting, say, the shape or size or nature of the event before it becomes a definite physical actuality.

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For centuries that is the main way in which man and woman dealt with events of his or her life or tribe or village. Our modern methods of communication are in fact modeled after our inner ones. My thoughts almost blended in enough to go relatively unnoticed. They were almost innocuous enough to be later accepted as coincidence. They did have, however, an extra intentness and vitality and peculiar insistence — qualities that I have learned are indicative of unusual psychological activity. The point is that in most such cases the subjective recognition of an approaching event flows so easily and transparently into our attention, and fits in so smoothly with the events of the day, as to go unnoticed. We help mold the nature and shape of events without realizing it, overlooking those occasions when the processes might show themselves.

Even the conscious mind contains much more information about the structure of events than we realize we possess. The physical perceiving apparatuses of all organizations carry their own kind of inner systems of communication, allowing events to be manipulated on a worldwide basis before they take on what appears to be their final definitive physical occurrences in time and space.

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Individually and globewide, value fulfillment is in a fashion the purpose of all events. Value fulfillment, again, is the impetus that drives the wheels of nature, so to speak. As the origin of our world did indeed emerge from the “world of dreams,” so the true root of all events lie in such subjective activities, and the answers to individual challenges and problems are always within our grasp, ready to appear in physical actuality.

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In my next blog I hope to show the importance of value fulfillment on our own life, and give clues that will allow us to take better advantage of our own subjective and objective opportunities for such development.

Time Overlays

Time overlays are versions of master events, in that they occur in such a fashion that one “face” of an overall event may appear in one time, one in another, and so forth.

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Time overlays are the time versions of certain events, then. These time overlays always exist. They may become activated, however, by certain associations made in our present, and therefore  draw into our present time some glimpses either from the future or the past. So-called present time is thickened, then, by a psychological realization on deep levels of the psyche that all events are interrelated, and that the reincarnational experiences of any given individual provide a rich source of experience from which each person at least unconsciously draws.

Such usually unconscious knowledge is of great benefit to the species itself, so that at certain levels, at least, the knowledge of the species is not imprisoned within any given generation at once, but flows or circulates within the overall larger reincarnational picture. Probabilities are very much involved here, of course, and it is easier for particular events to fall within one time sequence than  another.

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I do not want us to feel that we are fated to experience certain events, however, for that is not the case. There will be “offshoots” of the events of our own lives, however, that may appear as overlays in our other reincarnational existences. There are certain points where such events are closer to us than others, in which mental associations at any given time may put us in correspondence with other events of a similar nature in some future or past incarnation, however. It is truer to say that those similar events are instead time versions of one larger event. As a rule we experience only one time version of any given action. Certainly it is easy to see how a birthday or anniversary, or particular symbol or object, might serve as an associative connection, rousing within us memories of issues or actions that might have happened under similar circumstances in other times.

Actually, that kind of psychological behavior represent the backbone of social organization as far as the species is concerned, and it is the usually hidden but definite past and future memories of reincarnational relationships that cement social organizations, from small tribes to large governments.

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To a certain extent, or course, we have been or will be each related to the other. In that light all of the events of time rub elbows together. We brush against the elbow of a future or past event every moment of our lives.

In the culture that we know, such information remains hidden from us. Our main belief systems lead us to feel that our present life is singular, unsupported by any knowledge of prior experience with existence, and fated to be cut off or dead-ended without a future. Instead, we always carry the inner knowledge of innumerable available futures. Our emotional life at certain levels is enriched by the unconscious realization that those who love us from past or future are connected to us by special ties that add to our emotional heritage and support.

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As many have supposed, particularly in fiction, love relationships do indeed survive time, and they put us in a special correspondence. Even as we were aware of reincarnational existences, our present psychological behavior would not be threatened but retain its prominence — for only within certain space and time intersections can physical actions occur. The more or less general acceptance of the theory of reincarnation, however, would automatically alter our social systems, add to the richness of experience, and in particular insert a fresh feeling for the future, so that we did not feel our lives dead-ended.

In earlier blogs I mentioned several times that we must reach a point at which we are able to see around the corner of seemingly contradictory material, and this is one of those occasions. Time overlays present us with a picture in which we have free will — yet each event that we choose will have its own time version. Now those time versions may be entirely different one from the others, and while we certainly initiate our own time version, in terms of usual understanding there is no true place or time in which that version can be said to actually originate.

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Such a time version suggests an occurrence in time, of course, and yet the event may leave only a ghostly track, so to speak, being hardly manifest, while in another life the time version may be of considerable prominence — while in our own experience it represents a fairly trivial incident of an ordinary afternoon.

The inner core of events, however, is held together by just that kind of activity. We are at every hand provided an unending source of probable events from past and future, from which to compose the events of our lives and society. Again, let me remind  you that all time exists simultaneously.

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In an experience last evening in the dream state, I received fresh evidence by viewing for myself portions of two other lives — merely snatches of environment, but so dearly filled with precious belongings and loved ones, so alive with immediacy — that I was shocked to realize that the full dimensions of existence could continue so completely in such detail and depth at the same time as my present life.

It seemed that I could step from any one such existence to the other as we might walk from one room to the other, and I knew that at other levels of the psyche this was indeed possible– and, of course, at other levels of the psyche those psychological doors are open.

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I have had particular difficulty, however, with “the theory of reincarnation,” because as it is usually described, it seemed that people used it to blame as the source of current misfortune, or as an excuse for personal behavior whose nature they did not otherwise understand, and it has been so maligned. Its reality, however, serves to generate activity throughout time’s framework as we understand it, to unite the species, to reinforce structures of knowledge, to transmit information, and perhaps most of all to reinforce relationships involving love, brotherhood, and cooperation between generations of men and women that would otherwise be quite separate and apart from each other.

Through such relationships, for example, say, the cavemen and cavewomen and the people of the 22nd century rub elbows, where in strict terms of time the species would seem to be quite disconnected from its “earlier” or “later” counterparts.

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Through such behavior the overall value fulfillment purposes and intents of the species are kept in focus, and those necessary requirements then planted in whatever space or time is required. Again, free will still operates in all such ventures.

Now while it seems that our world contains more and more information all the time, our particular brand of science is a relatively narrow one, in that it accepts as valid only certain specific areas of speculation. The areas outside of its boundaries become taboo, so that the realm of the unknown is no longer the material universe or the mysteries of space, but the interior universe and the mysteries of the mind as these are experienced or suspected to exist outside of those official areas. To that degree, the unknown is more feared by science than it ever was by religion.

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Religion was hampered — and is — by its interpretation of good and evil, but it did not deny the existence of other versions of consciousness, or different kinds of psychological activity and life. Reincarnation suggests, or course, the extension of personal existence beyond one time period, independently of one bodily form, the translation or transmission of intelligence through non-physical frameworks, and implies psychological behavior, memory and desire as purposeful action without the substance of any physical mechanism — propositions that science at its present stage of development simply could not buy, and for which it could find no evidence, for its methods would automatically preclude the type of experience that such evidence would require.

People can become quite frightened, then, of any kind of experience of a personal nature that imply reincarnational life, for they are then faced with the taboos of science, or perhaps by the distorted explanations of some religions or cults. We therefore protect ourselves from many quite natural up thrusts that would on their own give us experience with our own reincarnational existences, and we are often denied psychological comfort in times of stress that we might otherwise receive.

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I do not necessarily mean that full-blown pictures of other existences would necessarily come into our mind, but that in one way or another we would receive a support or change of mood as those loved by us in other lives in one way or another sensed our need and responded.

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The entire nature of events, then, exists in a different way than we have supposed, only small portions slicing into the reality that we recognize — yet all underneath connected to a vast psychological activity. We might compare events to psychological consonants that underlay or underlie the more unusual features of physical psychological environment.

Communications appear between telepathy, automatic writing, speaking, and the hearing of voices

The supposedly telepathic messages can be attributed to contemporaries — enemies, gods, devils, or what have you. Space People are a recent addition. In most cases, what we have here are expressions of strong portions of the self that are more or less purposefully kept in isolation. They may appear or disappear, psychologically speaking. They present a kind of chain of command — one that is not usually permanent for any long period, however.

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Particularly when the voices or communications give orders to be obeyed, they represent powerful, otherwise repressed, images and desires, strong enough to form about themselves their own personifications. Some may seem relatively genuine in terms of presenting a fairly well-rounded representation of a normal personality. That is a fairly rare occurrence however. Usually we are presented with, say, semi-personalities, or even with lesser versions — fragmentary expressions of impulses and desires that are dramatically presented only in snatches heard by the person as a voice, or perceived as a presence.

In many situations, the main personifications are instead of a ritual nature, taking advantage of psychological patterns already present in the culture’s art of religion or science. We end up with Christs, spacemen and spacewomen, various saints or spirits, or other personality fabrications whose characteristics and abilities are already known.

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We have schizophrenic models, in other words, and the particular model chosen in any case, at any given time — for the model change — gives indications quite clearly of the person’s basic problems and dilemmas. Such cultural models are present in society to begin with, because in one way or another they express in an exaggerated form certain portions of man’s and woman’s psychological reality that he or she does not as yet understand. This applies to the “good” schizophrenic models and to the “bad” ones — that is, to the gods as well as to the demons.

Such “communications” with the gods or demons, St. Pauls or Hitlers, represent in such instances dramatized, exaggerated personifications of the portion of the personality that is at the head of the chain of command at the moment.

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In the first place, reality is primarily a mental phenomenon, in which the perceptions of the senses are organized and put together in ways that perfectly “mimic” in physical terms a primary non-physical experience. This is tricky to express, because the application of a psychological awareness through the auspices of the flesh automatically makes certain transformations of data necessary.

Devils and demons have no objective existence. They have always represented, again, portions of mankind’s and womankind’s own psychological reality that to some extent he and she had not assimilated — but in a schizophrenic kind of expression, projected instead outward from himself or herself. Therefore, it does not seem he or she must be held accountable for acts that he or she considers debasing, or cruel. He or she isolates himself or herself from that responsibility by imagining the existence of other forces — the devils or demons of the nether world.

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On an individual basis, the schizophrenic carries through those cultural patterns. The contrasts between, say, the superior self or the idealized self, and the debased self, may vary. They may be brilliant apparent or somewhat blurred. In many such instances there will also be at least a short spurt of intense but scrambled, perhaps garbled, creative activity, in which the individual tries to recognize these various elements, as mankind and womankind has attempted many times in the creative, sometimes garbled creation of his or her own religions.

Here we can have  anything from banal rubbish to the most excellent creative product, but in the schizophrenic framework it will be of brief duration, experience outside of the framework of usual day-to-day living, concentrated.

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The Christ image is often used because it so perfectly represents the combination of the grandiose self, as per the all-knowing son of God, and the martyred victim who is crucified precisely because of his lofty position.

The Christ figure represents the exaggerated, idealized version of the inner self that the individual feels incapable of living up to. He or she is being crucified by his or her own abilities. He may — or of course she may — on other occasions receive messages from the devil, or demons, which on their part represent the person’s feelings about the physical self the seems to be so evil and contradictory in contrast to the idealistic image. Again, there is great variety of behavior here.

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Such people, however, in their fashion refuse to accept standardized versions of reality. Even though they are so uncertain of themselves that their psychological patterns do follow those of culture, religion, science, or whatever, they try to use those patterns in their own personalities together long after most people have settled upon one official version or another — so their behavior gives glimpses of the ever-changing give-and-take among the various elements of human personality.

Most of the declared instances of telepathy or clairvoyance that happen in schizophrenic situations are instead the individual’s attempts to prove to himself or herself that the idealized qualities of omnipotence or power are indeed within grasp — this, of course, to compensate for the basic feeling of powerlessness in more ordinary endeavors. In some situations, however, there are definite, quite valid instance of telepathy or clairvoyance, vivid out-of-body experiences, and other excursions beyond the officially accepted realm of reality.

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These are often complicated, however, since the individual’s belief patterns are of such an exaggerated blend to begin with, so that such episodes are usually accompanied by phantom figures from religion or mythology. The individuals may feel forced to have such experiences, simply because, again, they do not want to face responsibility for action, for the reasons given earlier.

In our terms of time, man and woman have always projected unassimilated psychological elements of his own personality outward, but in much earlier times he or she did this using a multitudinous variety of images, personifications, gods, goddesses, demons and devils, good spirits and bad. Before the Roman gods were fully formalized, there was a spectacular range of good and bad detities, with all gradations among them, that more or less “democratically” represented the unknown but sensed, splendid and tumultuous characteristics of the human soul, and have stood for those sensed but unknown glimpses of his own that man was in one way or another determined to explore.

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It was understood that all of these “forces” had their parts to play in human events. Some stood for forces of nature that could very well be at times advantageous, and at times disadvantageous — as, for example, the god of storms might be very welcome to one time, in periods of drought, while his or her powers might be quite dreaded if he or she overly satisfied his or her people. There was no chasm of polarity between the “good gods and the bad ones.”

Jehovah and the Christian version of God brought about a direct conflict between the so-called forces of good and the so-called forces of evil by largely cutting out all of the intermediary gods, and therefore destroying the subtle psychological give-and-take that occurred between them — among them — and polarizing man’s and woman’s own view of his or her inner psychological reality.

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There were no schizophrenics in the time of the pagans, for the belief systems did not support that kind of interpretation. This does not mean that certain behavior did not occur that we would now call schizophrenic. It means that generally speaking such behavior fit within the psychological picture of reality. It did so because many of the behavior patterns associated, now, with schizophrenia, are “distorted and debased” remnants of behavior patterns that are part and parcel of man’s and woman’s heritage, and that harken back to activities and abilities that at one time had precise social meaning, and served definite purposes.

These include man’s and woman’s ability to identify with the forces of nature, to project portions of his own psychological reality outward from himself and herself, and then to perceive those portions in a revitalized transformation — a transformation that then indeed can alter physical reality.

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The next natural step would be to re-assimilate those portions of the self, to acknowledge their ancient origins and abilities, to return them so that they form a new coating, as it were, or a new version of selfhood. It is as if man and woman could not understand his or her own potentials unless he or she projected them outward into a godhead, where he or she could see them in a kind of isolated pure form, recognize them for what they are, and then accept them — the potentials — as a part of his or her own psychological reality. As a species, however, we have not taken the last step. Our ideas of the devil represents the same kind of process, except that it stands for our idea of evil or darkness, or abilities that we are afraid of. They also stand for elements of our own potential. I am not speaking of evil possibilities, but that man and woman must realize that he and she are responsible for his and he acts, whether they are called good or evil.

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We make our own reality, Man’s and Woman’s “evil” exists because of his or her misunderstanding of his or her own ideals, because of the gap that seems to exist between the ideal and its actualization. Evil actions, in other words, are the result of ignorance and misunderstanding. Evil is not a force in itself.

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Trust the body when it is undergoing  many changes, for the changes are all for the better.

The Natural Person is the Magical Person

The natural person is indeed the magical person. When we are intensely involved in a project, just finished, we let much of our inner experience slide, relatively speaking. Then, however, we have been stuck by the magical ease with which we seemed, certainly, to perceive and act upon information that we did not even realize we possessed.

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The main point is the importance of accepting a different kind of overall orientation — one that is indeed a basic part of human nature. This involves an entirely different relationship of the self we know with time.

Important misunderstandings involving time have been in a large measure responsible for many difficulties. All of this involves relating to reality in a more natural, and therefore magical, fashion. There is certainly a kind of natural physical time in our experience, and in the experience of any creature. It involves the rhythm of the seasons — the days and nights and tides and so forth. In the light of that kind of physical time, there is no basic cultural time, which we have transposed upon nature’s rhythms.

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Such cultural time works well overall for the civilization that concentrates upon partialities, bits and pieces, assembly lines, promptness of appointments, and so forth.

I culturally have felt that each moment must be devoted to work. Natural time is far different than we suppose. Far richer, and it turns inward and outward and backward and forward upon itself.

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Being our own natural and magical self when we dream, we utilize information that is outside of the time context experienced by the so-called rational mind. The creative abilities operate in the same fashion, appearing within consecutive time, but with the main work outside of it entirely. When we are working on our projects, our cultural time is taken up in a way we found acceptable. When the projects were done, there is still the cultural belief that time should be so used, that creativity must be directed and disciplined to fall into the proper assembly-line time slots.

There is much material here that I will give you, because it is important that we understand the different ways of relating to reality, and how those ways create the experienced events.

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We have not really, any of us, been ready to drastically alter our orientations, but we are approaching that threshold. The ‘magical approach’ means that we actually change our methods of dealing with problems, achieving goals, and satisfying means. we change over to the methods of the natural person. They are indeed, then, a part of our private experience. They are not esoteric methods, but we must be convinced that they are the natural methods by which man and woman are meant to handle his or her problems and approach his or her challenges.

I use the word ‘methods’ because we understand it, but actually we are speaking about an approach to life, a magical or natural approach that is man’s and woman’s version of the animal’s natural instinctive behavior in the universe. That approach does indeed fly in direct contradiction to the learned methods we have been taught.

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It certainly seems that the best way to get specific answers is to ask specific questions, and the rational mind thinks first of all of something like a list of questions. In that regard, my response before such a blog is natural, and to an extent magical, because I know that no matter what I have been taught, I must to some degree forget the questions and the mood that accompanies them with one level of consciousness, in order to create the proper kind of atmosphere at another level of consciousness — one that allows the answers to come even though they may be presented in a different way than that expected by the rational mind.

What we will be discussing for several blogs, with your joint enthusiasm– will be the magical approach to reality, and to our private lives specifically, in order to create that kind of atmosphere in which the answers become experienced.

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Life as we know it is excitement; highly organized — excitement at all levels, microscopic, macroscopic, psychic. It is the result of the relationship between balance and imbalance, between organization and ‘chaos.’ It is excitement ever in a state of flux, forming psychic and material knots. It is explosive yet filled with order; it becomes so filled with itself that it explodes in the same way that a flower bursts; the same principle is acting in a hurricane or a food or a murder of the creation of a poem, or the formation of a dream; in the birth and death of individuals and nations. We instinctively know that disasters mimic the birth and death of cells within our bodies — we instinctively know that all life survives death, that death is the bursting of life into new forms, hence our fascination with accidents and fires. The psyche itself leapfrogs our beliefs at usual conscious levels, and sees us as a part of all life themselves to the brim, exploding, escaping the framework only to form another. The emotions themselves can sense this when we let them, and grasping that sense of excitement can show us a glimpse of the even greater freedom of our own psychic existence, which flows into us as individuals and then bursts apart that short-lived form into another, as the excitement of individuation leaps from life to life.

My own ideas must be colored to some extent by my place in time also, and middle age seems to be an excellent spot for such a study because theoretically time stretches as far ahead as it does behind. That is, there is as much anticipated time as there is remembered time.

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In childhood we have little past time to remember. We seem to come from darkness, taking our parents’ memories on faith for proof that there was time before our birth. As we grow toward old age, if you take note of these 9 considerations to make before you retire, we have past time to play with — we know where we came from in usual terms — and the darkness that once seemed to stretch behind our source or origin seems to be our destination. Certainly, an examination of the mind and reality from the standpoint of old age will be invaluable. It would encourage one to live each day wholeheartedly, spend quality time with their loved ones and get their Wills & Estate planning laid out if needed.

Today now I feel that acceleration that tells me that my intent is traveling out into the unknown, or out into the universe to bring in answers to my questions, even questions I’m not consciously aware of. And from experience I know that enough energy is generated to do this though the results will come to me in time. I know I get them from outside of time in some unknown way.

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My state of mind is in (telepathic) correspondence with my wife’s own state of mind, even as we are in some kind of correspondence with our old (childhood) environment, so in these cases we have a free flow of information at other levels.

Now when we understand that intellectually, then the intellect can take it for granted that its own information is not all the information we possess. It can realize that its own knowledge represents the tip of the iceberg. As we apply that realization to our life, we g=begin to realize furthermore that in practical terms we are indeed supported by a greater body of knowledge than we realize, and by the magical, spontaneous fountain of action that forms our existence. The intellect can then realize that it does not have to go it all alone: Everything does not have to be reasoned out, even to be understood.

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I believe a great memory must be involved here, one that on deeper levels is coupled with s shortening of time as we think of it. Certain portions of the of the psyche must very shrewdly and carefully construct dreams in advance, so when the dreams are played back they render just the right messages to the other part or parts of the psyche that need them. I’m not being contradictory here when I write that dreams are also spontaneous productions.

The theory of probable realities — for like probable personalities, the unspoken channels available are certainly real whether or not they are actualized in our physical reality.

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I am going to refresh myself by diving into some new concepts, for there are new concepts for me also, or course, and I dive into them from many positions all the time as well. Think of the questions one could ask relative to just this one statement! Such provocative assertions leave behind them unsatisfied voids of curiosity. Actually, most of information does, regardless of subject matter.

Desire to create out of joy, not from a sense of responsibility

Many if the ideas in my blogs will be accepted by scientists most dubiously, though some, of course, will grasp what I will be saying. It is of course very difficult for the deepest truths cannot be physically proven. Science is used to asking quite specific questions, and it usually comes up with very specific answers — even if those answers are wrong.

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“Wrong” answers can fit together, however, to present a perfect picture, an excellent construct of its own — and why not? For any answers that do not fit the construct are simply thrown away and never appear. So in a fashion we are dealing with what science has thrown away. The picture we will end up presenting, will certainly not fit that of established science.

However, if objective proof of that nature is considered the priority for facts, then as we know science cannot prove its version of the universe’s origin either. It only sets up an hypothesis, which collects about it all data that agree, and again ignores what does not fit. Moreover, science’s thesis meets with no answering affirmation in the human heart — and in fact arouses the deepest antipathy, for in his or her heart man or woman well knows his/her own worth, and realizes that his/her own consciousness is no accident. The psyche, then, possesses within itself an inner affirmation, an affirmation that keeps man from being completely blinded by his/her own mental edifices.

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There is furthermore a deep, subjective, immaculately knowledgeable standard within man’s or woman’s consciousness by which he/she ultimately judges all of the theories and the beliefs of his/her time, and even if his/her intellect is momentarily swamped by ignoble doctrines, still that point of integrity knows. That is the portion of him/her, of course, that is born and grows to maturity even while the lungs or digestive processes do not read learned treatises on the body’s “machinery,” so in my blog we will hope to arouse within the reader, of whatever persuasion, a kind of subjective evidence, a resonance between ideas and being. Many people comment, saying that they feel as if somehow they have always been acquainted with our material — and of course they have, for it represents the inner knowing within each individual. In a fashion, creative play is our human version of far greater characteristics from which our universe itself was formed. There are all kinds of definite, even specific, subjective evidence for the nature of our own reality — evidence that is readily apparent once we really begin to look for it, particularly by comparing the world of our dreams with our daily life.

In other words, subjective play is the basis for all creativity, of course — but far more, it is responsible for the great inner play of subjective and objective reality.

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With all due respect, psychologists, with the best of intentions, are barking up the wrong psychological tree. He/she are very enthusiastic about his or her value tests, and his or her enthusiasm is what is important. The nature of the subjective mind, however, will never open itself to such tests, which represent, more than anything else, a kind of mechanical psychology, as if we could break down human values to a kind of logical alphabet of psychic atoms and molecules. A good try, but representative of psychology’s best attempt to make sense of a poor hypothesis.

We may do what we wish ourselves (about taking the tests), of course, but our main purpose is to drive beyond psychology’s boundaries, and not play pussyfoot among the current psychological lilies of the field.

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Our body’s are responding, so let us remember that creativity is playful, and that it always surfaces when we allow our mind to drop its worries.

Whenever a blog is translated, it is almost impossible, of course, to say the same thing in the same way. My blog will always be expressed through those invisible national characteristics that are so intimately involved with language — and obviously, were that not so, no blog could be understood by someone of a foreign language. There are bound to be distortions, but the distortions themselves are meaningful.

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Now, a number of the world’s leading scientists in the physical disciplines have publicly stated their beliefs that basically consciousness plays the primary role in our world and/or universe. For reasons too complicated to go into here, this attitude prevails even with some mathematicians who seek to penetrate to the core of our reality as they understand it.

However, for every scientist bold enough to think this way, there are scores of others who vehemently disagree. For most scientific materialists only physical matter is real. For them consciousness is nothing more than an epiphenomenon, the passive by-product of the brain’s physiology and chemical events. They believe that physical death is the end of everything, that ultimately all if pointless. They derisively call their rebellious colleagues “animists” — those who believe that all life forms and natural phenomena have a spiritual origin independent of physical matter. (Such heretics are called “Vitalists,” a term related to animism, and one which also has a long history of scientific contempt behind it.)

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What can the materialistic scientists use other than mind — or consciousness, that poor epiphenomenon — to study and dissect matter? (Not to mention that innumerable experiments have proven that “physical matter” isn’t solid or objective at all, but “only” energy!) We have, then, the paradox of mind denying its own reality, let alone its importance. As far as we know, human beings are the only creatures on earth who would seriously engage in such learned futile behavior. It’s also very ironic, I think, that the materialists spend years acquiring their eclipsed education and prestige, both of which they then use to inform us of the ultimate futility of all of our endeavors (including their own, or course). But for the materialists, the mind-brain duality isn’t scientific in the orthodox sense. It isn’t falsifiable; that is, it cannot be stated under what precise conditions the mind-brain duality could be proven false. To which, understandably enough, those scientists who do accept the reality of mind reply that neither can the idea be falsified that only what is “physical” is real.

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I think is most risky at this stage in history for anyone — scientist or not — to dogmatically state that life has no meaning, of is a farce, or that attributes of our reality of which we can only mentally conceive at this time do not really exist. Discoveries in the “future” are quite apt to prove such limited viewpoints wrong. The history of science itself contains many examples of theories and “facts” gone awry. Moreover, why would our species want to depend upon as fragile a conception as epiphenomenalism through which to comprehend our reality? Or better yet, why does it in large part? Truly, our individual and collective ignorance of just our own probable reality is most profound at this time in our linear history (in those terms). I would be surprised is ultimately, as a result of mankind’s or womankind’s restless search for meaning, we didn’t end up returning in a new official way to our ancient concepts of spirit within everything, animate and inanimate. Such an updated animistic/vitalistic view would take into account discoveries ranging from sub-nuclear events to the largest imaginable astronomical processes in our observable universe. Human beings do know their own worth.

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There is no doubt that we need to believe that life has meaning. That belief may well be biological imperative. If we were as science maintains — only creatures formed by elements combining mindlessly in a universe itself created by chance, surrounded everywhere by chaos — then how could we even conceive of the idea of meaning or order?

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Science would say that the idea of meaning itself is simply a reflection of the state of the brain, as is the illusion of our consciousness. But a science that disregards consciousness must necessarily end up creating its own illusion. It ignores the reality of experience, the evidence of being, and in so doing it denies rather than reinforces life’s values.

 

The year 2020, and the idea of time and of dates seems to be indelibly mixed into everyone’s psychology

We can remember last year, and to some extent recall the past years of our lives. It appears to us that our present consciousness wanders backward into the past, until finally we can remember no longer — and on a conscious level, at least, we must take the very event of our birth under secondhand evidence. Few people have conscious memory of it.

For the purpose of our discussion, I must necessarily couch this blog to some degree in the framework of time. I must honor our specifics. Otherwise my blog readers would not understand what I am trying to say.

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Even though this blog is being written within time’s tradition, therefore, I must remind you that basically that tradition is not mine — and more, basically, it is not yours either.

In the deepest of terms, and in ways that quite scandalize the intellect when it tries to operate alone, the beginning is now. That critical explosion of divine subjective into objectivity is always happening, and we are being given life “in each moment” because of the simultaneous nature of that divine subjectivity.

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I hope that in other portions of my blogs certain mental exercises will allow us to leap over the tradition of time’s framework and sense with the united intellect and intuitions our own individual part in a spacious present that is large enough to contain all of time’s segments.

Imagine a body with a fully operating body consciousness

A body not diseased or defective, but without the overriding ego-directed consciousness that we have. The sleepwalker’s physical abilities surpassed ours. They were as agile as animals, their purpose simply to be. Their main points of consciousness were elsewhere, their primary focuses scarcely aware of the bodies they had created. Yet they learned ‘through experience,’ and began to ‘awaken,’ to become aware of themselves, to discover time, or to create it.

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The sleepwalkers were not asleep to themselves, only from our viewpoint. There were several such races of human beings. To them the real was the dream life, which contained the highest stimuli. This is the other side of our own experience. Such races left the physical earth much as they found it. In what we would call the physical waking state, these individuals slept, yet they behaved with great natural physical grace. They did not saddle the body with negative beliefs of disease or limitation. They did not age to the extent that we do.

The blueprints for “ideal” development exist within the pool of genetic knowledge

The ideal blueprints provide the species with multitudinous avenues for fulfillment. Those blueprints exist mentally as ideals. They express themselves through the impetus and creativity of the species’ individual members.

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Our natural athletes, for example, show through their physical expertise certain ideal body conditions. They may personify great agility or strength or power: individual attributes, physical ideals which are held up to others for their appreciation, and which signify, to whatever extent, abilities inherent in the species itself.

I believe that man and woman runs the mile much quicker now than he or she did, say, thirty years ago. Has the body’s effective speed suddenly quickened? Hardly. Instead, mental beliefs about the body’s performance have changed, and increased physical speed resulted. The body can indeed run faster than the current record (of 3:39). I merely want to show effect of beliefs upon physical performance. All people do not want to be expert runners, however. Their creativity and their ideals may lie in quite different fields of endeavor, but individual performance always adds to the knowledge of the species. Good, better, best. Is it bad to be a poor runner? Of course not, unless running is your own particular avocation. And if it is , you improve with practice.

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Now our ideals, whatever they may be, initially emerge from our inner experience, and this applies to the species as a whole. Our ideas of society and cooperation arise from both a biological and spiritual knowledge given us at birth. Man and woman recognized the importance of groups after observing the animals’ cooperation. Our civilizations are our splendid, creative, exterior renditions of the inner social groupings of the cells of the body, and the cooperative processes of nature that give us physical life. This does not mean that the intellect is any less, but that it uses its abilities to help us form physical civilizations that are the reflections of mental, spiritual, and biological inner civilizations. We learn from nature always, and we are a part of it always.

Our searches toward understanding excellent performance in any area — our idealisms — are all spiritually and biologically ingrained. If many of the conditions we have mentioned are less than ideal in our society, then we can as an individual begin to change those situations. We do this by accepting the rightness of our own personhood. We do this by discarding ideas of unworthiness and powerlessness, no matter what their sources. We do this by beginning to observe our own impulses, by trusting our own direction. We start wherever we are, today.

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We do not dwell upon the unfortunate conditions in our environment, but do take steps in our own life to express our ideals in whatever way is given. Those ways are multitudinous.

Generally speaking, for example, If you are seriously worried about a physical condition, go to a doctor, because your own beliefs may over frighten you otherwise. Begin with innocuous but annoying physical conditions, however, and try to work those out for yourself. Try to discover why you are bothered. When you have a headache or a simple stomach upset, or if you have a chronic, annoying but not serious condition, such as trouble with you sinuses, of if you have hay fever — in those situations, remind yourself that your body does indeed have the capacities to heal itself.

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Do these exercises to discover what conditions of a mental nature, or psychological origin, are causing distress. instead of taking an aspirin for a headache, sit down, breathe quietly, and remind yourself that you are an integral part of the universe. Allow yourself to feel a sense of belonging with nature. Such an exercise can often relieve a headache in no time. But each such experience will allow us to build up a sense of trust in our own body’s processes.

Examine the literature that you read, the television programs that you watch, and tell yourself to ignore those indications given of the body’s weaknesses. Tell yourself to ignore literature or programs that speak authoritatively about the species’ “killer instincts.” Make an effort to free your intellect of such hampering beliefs. Take a chance on your own abilities. If we learn to trust our basic integrity as a person, then we will be able to assess our abilities clearly, neither exaggerating them or under assessing them.

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We will not feel the need, say, to “justify our existence” by exaggerating a particular gift, setting up the performance of one particular feat or art as a rigid ideal, when in fact we may be pleasantly gifted but not greatly enough endowed with a certain ability to give us the outstanding praise we think we might deserve.

On the other hand, there are many highly gifted people who continually put down their abilities, and are afraid to take one small step toward their expression. If we accept the rightness of our life in the universe, then our ideals will be those in keeping with our nature. They will be fairly easily given expression, so that they add to our own fulfillment and to the development of the society as well.

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Our impulses are our closest communication with our inner self, because in the waking state they are the spontaneous urgings toward action, rising from that deep inner knowledge of oneself that we have in dreams. We were born because we had the impulse to be. The universe exists because it had the impulse to be. There was no exterior cosmic Pied Piper, singing magical notes or playing a magical tune, urging the universe into being. The urge to be came from within, and that urge is repeated to some extent in each impulse, each urge toward action on the part of man and woman or molecule. If we do not trust the nature of our impulses, then we do not trust the nature of our life, the nature of the universe, or the nature of our own being.

Any animal knows better than to distrust the nature of its own life, and so does any infant. Nature exists by virtue of faith. The squirrels gather nuts in the faith that they will have provisions, in the faith that the next season will come, and that spring will follow winter. Our impulses are immersed in the quality called faith, for they urge us into action in the faith that the moment for action exists. Our beliefs must interact with our impulses, however, and often they can erode that great natural beneficial spontaneity that impulses can provide.

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When I speak of impulses, many of you will automatically think of impulses that appear contradictory or dangerous or “evil” — and that is because we are so convinced of the basic unworthiness of our being. We have every right to question our impulses, to choose among them, to assess them, but we must be aware of them, acknowledge their existence, for they will lead us to our own true nature. this may involve a lengthy journey for some of us, with our belief systems for many of our impulses now are the result of the pressure caused by perfectly normal unacknowledged ones in the past. But our impulses reflect the basic impulse of our life. Even if they appear contradictory at any given time, overall they will be seen to form constructive patterns toward action that point more clearly towards our own clear path for fulfillment and development.

Natural attributes show themselves quite clearly in early childhood, for example, when we are allowed greater freedom to do what we want to do. As children, some people love to work with words, some with images, some with objects. Some show great ability in dealing with their contemporaries, while others naturally lean toward solitude and private meditations. Look back toward the impulsive behavior of your childhood, toward those activities that mostly pleased you.

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If you painted pictures, this does not mean that you necessarily should be an artist. Only we the strength of those impulses — but if they are intense and consistent, then pursue them. If you end up simply painting as a hobby, that will still enrich your life and understanding. If your impulses lead you toward relationships with others, then do not let fears of unworthiness stand in your way. It is very important that we express our idealism actively, to whatever extent we can, for this increases our sense of worth and power.

Such action serves as a safeguard so that we do not overemphasize the gaps that may exist in oneself or in society, between the reality and the ideal condition. Many people want to change the world for the better, but that ideal seems so awe-inspiring that they think they can male no headway unless they perform some great acts of daring or heroism, or envision themselves in some political or religious place of power, or promote an uprising or rebellion. The ideal seems so remote and unreachable that, again, sometimes any means, however, reprehensible, eventually can seem justified. To change the world for the better, we must begin by changing our own life. There is no other way.

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We begin by accepting our own worth as a part of the universe, and by granting every other being that same recognition. We begin by honoring life in all of its forms. We begin by changing our thoughts toward life in all of its forms. We begin by changing our thoughts toward our contemporaries, our country, our family, our working companions. If the ideal of loving our neighbor like oneself seems remote, we will at least absolutely refrain from killing our neighbor — and our neighbor is any person on the face of the planet.

We cannot love our neighbor, in fact, until we love oneself, and if we believe that it is wrong to love oneself, then we are indeed unable to love anyone else.

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For a start we will acknowledge our existence in the framework of nature, and to do that we must recognize the vast cooperative processes that connect each species with each other one. If we truly use our prerogatives as an individual in our country, then we can exert far more power in normal daily living than we do now. Every time we affirm the rightness of our own existence, we help others. Our mental states are part of the planet’s psychic’s atmosphere.

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A note: Our exterior civilizations do indeed mirror and reflect the great cellular civilizations, so that we try to exteriorize that kind of order and creativity.

Many of our technological advances — all of them, for that matter — are rather interpretations of the inner mechanisms of nature: sonar, radar, and so forth, as we attempt to physically or objectively reproduce the inner realities of nature. It is sometimes almost impossible to verbally describe civilizations of scent, civilizations built upon temperature variations, alphabets of color, pressure gradations — all of these highly intimate and organized, but quite outside of verbal representation.

In our lives, anything we want is possible within the contours of our natures, if only we understand that this is so.