Category Archives: Physical Life

Relaxation and Effortlessness

It is true, of course, that before the time of modern psychology man and woman had a concept of himself and herself that dealt with conscious exterior aspects only, although it has been written that until that time man and woman thought of themselves as a kind of flat-surfaced self-minus, for example, subconscious or unconscious complexity.

Instead, previous to psychology’s entrance, before psychology mapped the acceptable or forbidden, the dangerous or safe compartments of the self, man and woman used the word “soul” to  include his or her own entire complexity. The word was large enough to contain man’s and woman’s experience. It was large enough to provide room for conventional and unconventional, bizarre and ordinary states of mind and experience. It was roomy enough to hold images of reality that were physically perceived or psychologically perceived.

Now the church finally placed all of the condemnation of its religious laws against certain psychological and mystical experiences — not because it did not consider them realities, of course, but precisely because it recognized too well the disruptive influence that, say, revelationary experience could have upon a world order that was based upon a uniform dogma.

“Witches” were not considered insane, for example, or deranged, for their psychological beliefs fit in only too well with those of the general populace. They were considered evil instead. The vast range of psychological expression, however, had some kind of framework to contain it. The saint and the sinner each had access to great depths of possible heroism or despair. Psychological reality, for all of the religious dangers placed upon it, was anything but a flat-surfaced experience. It was in fact because the church so believe in the great range of psychological activity possible that it was so dogmatic and tireless in trying to maintain order.

Unfortunately, with the development of scientific era, a development occurred that need not have happened. As I have mentioned before, science’s determination to be objective almost immediately brought about a certain artificial shrinking of psychological reality. What could not be proven in laboratory was presumed not to exist at all.

Anyone who experienced “something that could not exist” was therefore to some extent or another deluded or deranged. There is no doubt that the accepted dimensions of psychological reality began to shrink precisely at the time that modern psychology began. Modern psychology was an attempt to make man and woman conform to the new scientific world view.

It was an attempt to fit man within the picture of evolution, and to manufacture a creature whose very existence was somehow pitted against itself. Evolutionary man and woman, with Darwinian roots, could not be a creature with a soul. It had to have hidden in its psychological roots the bloody remnants of the struggle for survival that now cast the soul in a position of stress, caught as it was between its heavenly source and original sin — but there was a sense of psychological mobility involved, one that saw continued existence after death.

The new psychology shut off mobility after death, while giving each individual an unsavory primitive past heritage — a heritage genetically carried, that led finally only to the grave. Psychological activity was scaled down in between life and death, then, even while the possibility of any after-death experience was considered the most unreasonable and unintellectual of speculations.

Any man or woman might rise in our democracy from a poor peasant’s son to be the President. Outcasts might become the socially prominent. The unlettered might become highly educated. The idea of achieving greatness, however, was considered highly suspect. The self was kept in bounds. Great passion, or desire or intent — or genius — did not fit the picture.

Now some peoples would not fit into that mold. They would take what they could from our technology, but in conscious and spontaneous ways they retaliated — and still do — by exaggerating all of those human tendencies that our society has held down so well. If we can have reason without faith, then indeed, for example, we will see that there can be faith without reason. When human experience becomes shrunken in such a fashion — compressed — then in a fashion it also explodes at both ends, one might say.

We have atrocious acts committed, along with great heroisms, but each are explosive, representing sudden releases of withheld energies that have in other ways been forbidden, and so man’s and woman’s mass psyche expresses itself sometimes like explosive fireworks, simply because the release of pressure is necessary.

Even our poor misguided moral/religious organization is saying in it’s fashion to the scientifically-oriented society: “How is faith not real, then? We’ll change your laws with it. We”ll turn it into power — political power. What will you say then? We have been laughed at for so long. We will see who laughs now.”

Fanaticism abounds, of course, because the human tendencies and experiences that have been denied by the mainline society erupt with explosive force, where the tendencies themselves must be accepted as characteristics of human experience. Iran is an example for the world, in explosive capsule form, complete with historical background and a modern political one. Modern psychology does not have a concept of the self to begin to explain such realities.

Now, in the world we early formed our own beliefs and strategies. In midlife we are presented with a recognized overall vitality of materials. This is mean to reorient our attitudes. Some don’t realize, that we are not merely being presented with an alternate view of reality, but with the closet approximation we could get of what reality is, and how it worked, and what it meant.

I have been very gentle in my treatment of our mores and institutions — for I do not want to be against our world, but for a more fulfilling one. In future blogs I will be discussing how our ideas can be applied by the individual in terms of value fulfillment, so that individuals can begin to reclaim those dimensions of experience that are indeed our right heritage.

For my blog readers, I want them to remember the idea of effortlessness, because with the best of intentions some have been trying too hard. I want them to remember that relaxation is one of creativity’s greatest champions — not its enemy. He or she is naturally gifted with the quickness of body and mind. Remind oneself that it is safe to express his or her natural rhythms, to remember the natural person. Our most vital inspirations are effortlessly ours. I want us to see how many of our beliefs are the result of the old framework, for in that way we will find ourselves releasing ourselves ore and more, so the our own strengths come to our support.

 

Inserting New Ideas Into The World

Under its overall auspices we have the most conventional establishment-oriented textbooks, devoted to continuing traditional ideas. We have, there, a concentration upon education as it is understood at that level.

My blogs do not appear under traditional headings. They are too anti-establishment to be in college networks, but in their way far too reasonable to be considered eccentricities — in the same fashion, now, that traditional blogs are. Maybe I will expand my message to social networks more in the future? I hear that it would be smart to get Facebook followers for free to grow the spread of my message

My blogs are attempting to insert new ideas into the world as it now is, by combining the powers of the intellect and the powers of the intuitions — in other words.

We have been dealing with the magical approach, and let me gently remind my blog readers that I have said we must be willing to change all the way from the old system of orientation to the new, if we want the new approach to work fully for us in our lives. That will, as it happens, include our approach to traditional thought, of course.

As I have said before, also, when faced with the difficulty, the conventional, rational approach tells us to look at the problem, examine it thoroughly, project it into the future, and imagine its dire consequences — and so, faced with the idea of a disclaimer.

That is an excellent example of what not to do.

Some people indeed, will begin to pull out of that, and at least question the approach. In the meantime, of course, our nervous systems reacted to the implied threat against our problems, a threat that now existed in the past, present and future.

We are protected. Our work is protected. When we realize that, we act out of confidence. We indeed catch ourselves. When we realize that we are protected, our own intellects can be reassured enough through experience so that they do not feel the need to solve problems with the rational approach in instances where that approach is not feasible.

In the deepest of terms it was not reasonable to nearly assume that a disclaimer, if used, would therefore be retroactively and then continuously used. It was not a conclusion based upon fact, but a conclusion based upon a reason that applied to one probability only, one series of probable acts — or based upon the probable act of a disclaimer being used to begin with. So again, what we are dealing with is an overall lesson in the way in which the reasoning mind has been taught to react. These are really instances where the intellect has been trained to use only a portion of its abilities, to zoom in the most pessimistic of any given series of probable actions — and then treat those as if they were facts.

I will, of course, have more to say in future blogs, that will hopefully allow our intellect to use in a clear fashion, to better our performances. So if I do decide to expand into social networks, make sure that you keep an eye out for me because I would love the chance to grow my Facebook followers and my blog more. I definitely have a lot of other things to say. We are quite right, again, to say that “There are elements in this situation — or any given situation — impossible for my intellect to know,” so the intellect can take that fact into consideration. Otherwise, we expect it to make deductions while denying it the comfort it should have, of knowing that its deductions need not be made on its own knowledge alone, but on the intuition’s vast magical bank of information — from which, in larger terms, all of the intellect’s information must spring. So I think we are finally trying to use a new approach in that direction.

The magical approach will get us through, if we use it.

“The light of the universe.”

It’s obvious that in this blog adventure I have once again cleverly protected myself from confronting the full creative blast of the life of the universe by allowing myself just a peek at it, and a careful one at that, at the top of a door. As a physical creature I’d be overwhelmed if ever I came even close to facing that awesome conscious and creative power.

Nature As Man’s and Woman”s Caretaker

Men and women likes to think of themselves as the caretaker of nature and the world. It is closer to the truth, however, to say — in that regard, at least — that nature is man’s and woman’s caretaker; or that man and woman exists, physically speaking, as the result of the graceful support of nature and all of its other species. Without those other species, man and woman as we know him and her would not exist, not without the continuous cooperation of those species with each other, and their interrelationships with the environment.

Man and woman serves his and her purposes within nature, as all species do, and in the terms of our understanding man and woman “thinks” in his and her own way, but he and she is also the thinking portion of nature. He and she are the portion that thinks, in our understanding, again, of that term.

He and she deals with the effect of thinking upon nature, so to speak. He and she adds to the rest of nature. He and she therefore adds a different kind of mental organization — and organization, then, that nature itself requires, anticipates, and desires. Animals do not read or write books or blogs, but they do “read” nature directly through the context of their own experience, and through intuitive knowing. Man’s and woman’s reasoning mind adds an atmosphere to nature, that is as real, say, as the Van Allen Belts (or radiation fields) that surround the earth.

The thinking mind to a large degree directs the activity of great spontaneous forces, with energy-cellular organization being, say, the captain of the body’s great energy sources. The reasoning mind defines, makes judgments, deals with the physical objects of the world, and also with the cultural interpretations current in its time.

Think of our own government in ideal terms for a moment. Its citizens are all individuals, with their own lives and interests. The government, if it has their loyalty, utilizes their energies in such a fashion that the majority are benefited, as is the government itself. Yet we cannot really put our finger on “the government,” though we might mention the White House as the seat of its power. The government is composed of many people, of course, and really extends all the way down the line, even to its least citizen, but the government can direct the use of energies, of goods, commerce, power, and so forth.

The people count upon the government to realistically define the conditions of the world, to have proper intelligence so that the activities in foreign lands are known, to keep up proper communication with other governments, and so forth. Now in some important respects the reasoning mind is like the government in this analogy. If the people in power are paranoid, then they overestimate the dangers of any given world situation. They overreact, or over mobilize, using a disproportionate amount of energy and time for defense, and taking energies away from other projects. The reasoning mind acts in the same fashion when paranoid beliefs are in power. It therefore tells all of the citizens — or cells of the body — to mobilize for action, to be on the alert, to pare down all but necessary activities, and so forth.

When a government is paranoid, it even begins to cut down on the freedom of its own peoples, or to frown upon behavior that in freer times would be quite acceptable. The same applies to the conscious mind in that situation. Now the people might finally revolt, or they will take certain steps to see that their freedom is restored, and so the body’s cells will do the same.

So what we want, obviously,  is to ensure that the conscious mind, with its reasoning processes, can make proper adjustments about the nature of the world and the individual citizens within it. I will return later to the purposes of man’s and woman’s conscious mind in nature, and part of that discussion will fall in my blogs.

Man’s and woman’s mind is really more of a process. It is not a completed thing, like an arm of leg, but a relationship and a process. That process has its source in what I can only call “natural reasoning.”

We are given far more knowledge than we realize when we are born, for example. I am not speaking of genetic information alone, as we understand it, but of a natural yet intuitive reasoning process that is that result of the relationships that exist among all portions of the body. This is the kind of “reasoning” that is the source from which thinking emerges, and we might think of it as magical reasoning. Some people might not realize the immense power that they themselves hold in the form of consciousness. In this regard, man has endeavored to explore many mystical plants over millenia that nature has bountifully offered, such as the Ayahuasca plant (look at Iowaska Benefits: Healing for Cancer, Depression & More for some deeper insights). The innate desire to know more and explore the boundaries of what we know, has led us to seek through different means.

Each creature is born trusting.

There is no such thing as a killer instinct, with the implications and meaning that man and woman give that term. At levels almost impossible to describe to us in our adulthoods, all infants, for example, know that they are born into the environmental niches that suit them and no others — that are tailored to their requirements. We can usually see in a superficial fashion how animals under “natural conditions” fit into their environments so perfectly, so that their needs and desires and equipment meet and merge with the characteristics of the environment. It is not nearly as easy to see that the same applies to man and woman and his and her mental and physical environment, his and her town or country or culture, but the infant trusts from the very first moment.

We may not consider trust an attribute connected with reasoning, but it is indeed, for it represents the creature’s innate understanding of the support with which it has been gifted. The natural person still feels that trust. There are many books written about occult knowledge, or magical knowledge. Most of them are filled with distortions, but they are all efforts to uncover man’s and woman’s natural magical reasoning. I will also have more to say on that subject in later blogs.

The body’s natural healing processes, that naturally flow and are naturally flowing when he or she allows himself or herself to trust his or her life and the support of his or her own being. It is our understanding that sets it all into motion. They must be allowed to happen, however, and that takes place as our understanding brings us in greater correspondence with the natural energy that is always our own.

The Intellect As A Cultural Artifact

The intellect is far more socially oriented than is generally understood.

Some of this, again, is difficult to explain, but in a fashion the intellect is a cultural phenomenon. It is amazing resilient, in that according to the belief structures of any given historical period, it can orient itself along the lines of those beliefs, using all of its reasoning abilities to bring such a world picture into focus, collecting data that agree, and rejecting what does not.

Obviously, the mind can use its reasoning abilities, for example, to come to the conclusion that there is a single god behind the functioning of the world, that there are many gods, that divinity is a fantasy, and that the world itself springs from no reasonable source. Like statistics, the reasoning abilities can be used to come to almost any conclusion. This is done, again, by taking into consideration within any given system of reasoning only the evidence that agrees with the system’ premises.

This flexibility allows the species great variation overall in its psychological and cultural and political and religious activities. When any system of reasoning becomes too rigid, however, there are always adjustments made that will allow other information to intrude — otherwise, of course, our belief systems would never change.

Our species shares with the other species a feeling of kinship for its kind. There is a great give-and-take of ideas. We end up, then, with a consensus, generally speaking, as to what a reasonable picture of agreed-upon reality is. Our system has frowned upon many experiences, considering them eccentric behavior in an adverse fashion, since our belief systems have so regimented behavior, and so narrowly defined sanity. The intellect, I want to stress, is socially oriented. It is peculiarly suited, of course, to react to cultural information. It wants to see the world as it is seen by the minds of others. Through that kind of action it helps form our cultural environment, the civilization of which we are justly proud.

The intellect, then, helps our species translate its own natural purposes and intents — the purposes and intents of the natural person — into their “proper” cultural context, so that those abilities the natural person possesses can benefit the civilization of its time. Those purposes and intents literally change the world. The intellect’s expectations and intents spontaneously and automatically trigger  the proper bodily mechanisms to bring about the necessary environmental interactions, and our intent as expressed through our intellect directs our experience of the world.

I am speaking about the intellect here for our discussion, but remember it is everywhere cushioned also. There are backup systems, in other words. If the intellect believes that the world is a threat to existence, then that belief will alter its intents, of course, and therefore the body’s activities. The beliefs of the intellect operate then as powerful suggestions, particularly when the intellect identifies with those beliefs, so that there is little distance between the intellect and the beliefs that it holds as true.

I am doing my best to explain the very practical aspects of the intellect’s beliefs, and their strength in drawing experience to us. At one time I had difficulty with understanding some of these ideas. Our own relationship, our private beliefs about the sort of persons we want individually for mates, brought about incalculable actions that lead finally to our meeting — yet it all happened “quite naturally,” of course. Our beliefs bring us into correspondence with the elements likely to lead to their affirmation. They draw from Framed-mind-2 all of the necessary ingredients. They elicit from other people’s behavior that is in keeping with those beliefs.

Our own attitudes, for example — and beliefs — about foreigners, people’s stupidity and lack of integrity, put us in correspondence with those same beliefs on the part of others, resulting in a translation fiasco. An entirely different kind of behavior could have been elicited from those same people. Like attracts like in that regard. Those same people, for example, all have, as we do, beliefs in people’s trustworthiness, and so forth — but under those conditions, at that time, we each — or rather us all — are in correspondence at many levels. My blogs are published. They have helped many people, and that is because we are also in correspondence as far as many of our more positive beliefs are concerned, and those outweigh the others.

We get what we concentrate upon, and our beliefs are largely responsible for those areas in which we concentrate.

There are no magical methods, only natural ones that we use all of the time, although in some cases we use them for beliefs that we take for truths, when instead they are quite defective assumptions. A small example — one, incidentally, that I finally realized; but it is a beautiful instance of natural methods.

I heard the next day’s weather report, groaned, thought of a very uncomfortable 90-degree temperature tomorrow and imagined myself miserable with the heat. Indeed, I began to feel warmer. In a flash I remembered previous days of discomfort, and in the next moment I projected those into the weekend. I felt trapped. Midway through this process I tried to catch myself, but I believed that my body could not handle the heat — and that belief outweighed my intent to change my thoughts, so they kept returning for perhaps ten minutes.

I continued, however, to remind myself that I was not going to worry about tomorrow today, regardless. I told myself that the prediction might be wrong, and I began with my intellect to pile up evidence that could in one way or another bring about a different, more beneficial experience. I did this by recognizing the way I had earlier been building up the picture in the old manner, by collecting all the evidence that fitted it. I used the same process, only for a more beneficial picture, and the process works. We have only to become aware of it.

Our experience will follow our concentration and beliefs and expectation. The mind is a great discriminator. It can use its reasoning to bring about almost any possible experience within our framework.

The Ilda Family is Composed of The “Exchangers.”

They deal primarily in the great play of exchange and interchange of ideas, products, social and political concepts. They are travelers, carrying with them the ideas of one country to another, mixing cultures, religions, attitudes, political structures. They are explorers, merchants, soldiers, missionaries, sailors. They are often members of crusades.

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Throughout the ages they have served as the spreaders of ideas, the assimilators. They(The Ilda) turn up everywhere. They were pirates and slaves as well, historically speaking. They are often primarily involved in social changes. In our time they may be diplomats, as they were also in the past. Their characteristics are usually those of the adventuresome. Very seldom do they live in one place for long, although they may if their occupation deals with products from another land. individually they may seem highly diverse in nature, one from the other, but we will not find them as a rule in universities as teachers. We might find them as archaeologists in the field, however.

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A good many salesmen belong in this (Ilda) category. In our terms they may be cosmopolitan, and often wealthy, so that frequent travel is possible. On the other hand, however, in certain frameworks, a humble merchant in a small country who travels through nearby cities might also belong to this family. They are interested in the outsides of things, social mores, the marketplace, current popular religious ideas. They spread these from place to place. They are the seed-carriers, both literally and figuratively.

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They can be “con men,” selling products supposed to have miraculous values, blinding the local populace with their city airs. Yet even then they will be bringing with them the aura of other ideas, often inserting into closed areas concepts with which others are already familiar.

The members of this family of consciousness provide frequent new options. They may be scientists, or the strictest kind of conventional missionaries abroad in alien lands. In our present time they are sometimes Indians (from India, that is), or Africans or Arabs, journeying to our civilization. They add to the great flow of communication. They may be emotional rather than intellectual, as we understand those terms, but they are restless, usually on the move. They can be actors, also.

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In the past some (Ilda) have been great courtesans, and even though they were not able to travel physically, they were at the heart of communication– that is, a part of court life, or involved with diplomats who did travel.

Many of the courtesans who rule the salons of Europe belonged in the (Ilda) category. The Crusades involved great movement of this family, in which trade and commerce, and the exchange of political ideas, were far more important than the religious aspects. Some members of this family served as initiators of new orders in the (Catholic) church in the past–the worldly Jesuits, for example, and some of the more sophisticated popes, who had a fine eye out for commerce and wealth. These people may be appreciators of fine art, but usually for its commercial value.

Now we can often find then in the departments of government, in these areas where travel is involved, or in finance. They frequently enjoy, intrigue. All in all, they mix mores.

The Way In Which The Individual is Defined

Part of the difficulty arises from the current scientific-oriented blend of rationalism. As a species, we think of ourselves as the “pinnacle” end of an evolutionary scale, as if all other entities from the first cell onward somehow existed in a steady line of progression, culminating with animals, and finally with man and woman the reasoning animal. (with all of that progress occurring of course by chance, incidentally.)

That particular blend of rational thinking with which our society is familiar takes it more or less for granted, then, that  man’s and woman’s identity as a species, and the identity of the individual, is first and foremost connected with the intellect . We identify ourselves with our intellect, primarily, casting aside as much as possible other equally vital elements of our personhood.

In our historical past, when man and woman identified his or her identity with the soul, he or she actually gave himself or herself greater leeway in terms of psychological mobility, but eventually the concept of the soul as held resulted in a distrust of the intellect. That result was the inevitable follow-up of dogma. Part of man’s woman’s latest over-identification with the intellect is, of course, an overreaction to those past historical events. Neither religion or science grant other creatures much subjective dimension, however: We like to think of ourselves, again, as the reasoning animal in terms of our species.

However, animals do reason. They do not reason in the same areas that we do. In those areas in which they do reason, they understand cause and effect quite well. Their reasoning is applied, however, to levels of activity to which our own reasoning is not applied. Therefore, often animal reasoning is not apparent to us. Animals are curious. Their curiosity is applied to areas in which we seldom apply our own.

The animals possess a consciousness of self, and without the human intellect. We do not need a human intellect to be aware of our own consciousness. Animals, it is true, do not reflect upon the nature of their own identities as man and woman do, but this is because that nature is intuitively comprehended. It is self-evident.

I only want to show that the sense of identity need not inevitably be coupled with the intellect exclusively. Our intellect is a part of us — a vital, functioning portion of our cognitive processes — but it does not contain our identity.

The natural person is understood perhaps more clearly by considering any person as a child. In fashion the child discovers its own intellect, as it discovers its own feelings. Feelings come “first.” The child’s feelings give rise to curiosity, to thoughts, to the operation of the intellect: “Why do I feel thus and so? Why is grass soft, and rock hard? Why does a gentle touch soothe me, while a slap hurts me”

The feelings and sensations give rise to the questions, to the thoughts, to the intellect. The child in a fashion feels — feels — its own thoughts rise from a relative psychological invisibility into immediate, vital formation. There is a process there that we have forgotten. The child identifies with its own psychic reality first of all — then discovers its feelings, and claims those, and discovers its thoughts and intellect, and claims those.

The child first explores the components of its psychological environment, the inside stuff of subjective knowledge, and claims that inner territory, but the child does not identify its basic being with either its feelings or its thoughts. That is why, for example, it often seems that young children can die so easily. They can disentangle themselves because they have not as yet identified their basic beings with life experience.

In most cases children grow up, of course, although in the vast overall picture of nature a goodly proportion of individuals do indeed take other courses. They serve other functions, they have other purposes, they take part in life through a different cast of action. They affect life while themselves not completely immersed in it. They die young. They are aborted. They remain, however, an important element in life’s overall picture — part of a psychological underpainting that always affects later versions.

Ideally, however, children finally claim their feelings and their thoughts as their own. They identify naturally with both, finding each valid and vital. By the time we are an adult, however, we have been taught to disconnect our identity from our feelings as much as possible, and to think of our personhood in terms of our intellectual orientation. Our identity seems to be in our head. Our feelings and our mental activity therefore appear, often, quite contradictory. We try to solve all problems through the use of reasoning alone.

We are taught to submerge the very intuitive abilities that the intellect needs to do its proper work — for the intellect must check with the feeling portions of the self for feedback, for support, for knowledge as to biological conditions. Denied that feedback, it can spin on endlessly in frenzied dry runs.

At each moment, from the most microscopic levels the body in one way or another is ascertaining a constant picture of its position within physical reality. That picture is composed of millions of ever-changing smaller snapshots, as it were — or moving pictures is better — determining so many conditions, positions and relationships that they could never be described. We end up with a predominating picture of reality in any given moment — one that is the result of the activity of psychological, biological, and electromagnetic strats. One picture is transposed upon the others, and calculations made constantly, so that all of the components that make up physical existence are met, and intersect to give us life.

None of that is the intellect’s concern at an intellectual level. At a biological level, and at an electromagnetic level, the intellect, of course, performs feats that it cannot consciously know through the use of its reason. Spontaneously, with the process just mentioned, millions of pictures are being taken also of the probable actions that will — or may — be needed, in our terms, in the moment immediately following, from microscopic action to the motion of a muscle, the driving of a car, the reading of a book, or whatever.

One of the intellect’s main purposes is to give us a conscious choice in a world of probabilities. To do that properly the intellect is to make clear, concise decisions, on its level, of matters that are its concern, and therefore to present its own picture of reality to add to the entire construct. On the one hand we have been told to identify ourselves almost completely with our intellects. On the other hand, we have been taught that the intellect, the “flower of consciousness,” so  frail, vulnerable adjunct — again, a chance creation, without meaning and without support without support because we believe that “beneath it” lie “primitive, animalistic, bloody instincts,” against which reason must exert what strength it has.

Despite all of that, men and women still find the solutions to many of their problems by rediscovering the larger sense of identity — a sense of identity that accepts the intuitions and the feelings, the dreams and the magic hopes as vital characteristics, not adjuncts, of personhood. When I tell you to remember your own natural persons, I do then want to remind you not to identify with your intellect alone, but to enlarge you scopes of identity. Automatically those other, often-shunted-aside characteristics begin to add their richness, fulfillment, and vitality to your lives effortlessly.

This new orientation will bring results, and the results do appear effortlessly. Remember that creative activity goes on within us all the time, and is often most active precisely when we are not aware of it. We are only aware of those moments when creative activity surges into our conscious awareness, and by then much of the “work” has already been done.

We are not responsible for other people’s realities, but we are responsible for our own. The Ill man’s or woman’s reality does not threaten our own in any way. The situation, however, shows that we sometimes still think we should be able to solve all problems, and to know all the reasons for any given sorrow or tragedy. The intellect cannot handle that kind of information at this level.

Some answers come when we are ready for them. Then they come naturally, as a matter of understanding and comprehension. The question of life’s tragedies still cannot be answered satisfactorily at the level at which any of us are currently asking it. I can give hints and clues and explanations that are quite valid within that context.

As a matter of fact, the kind of literal answers that we may think we want can indeed lead us somewhat astray in terms of the larger picture, so I must say: “That is not my province,” send energy, a note now and then; but the particular problem, the specific problem is the other’s, not mine’s.”

The reason for the problem is a philosophical concern of mine and of yours, but it is one whose answer — or answers — will gradually unfold. All of this information I consider necessary, again, to provide an overall atmosphere of comprehension that will allow the release of our own vitalities and strengths in an effortless manner, in such a way that our own problems begin to dissolve.

The kind of orientation I am speaking of represents the truest picture I can give of a man’s and woman’s natural relationship with himself or herself and the world. This is how it works. This is physical.

The Present Is The Point Of Power

The point of power is where flesh and matter meet with spirit. That juncture embodies the actions and beliefs we choose to draw from all of our previous points of power. From our current present we project, for better or worse, those choices, plus any new ones we may decide upon, into each of the presents we’ll be creating throughout the rest of our lives. The contents of our projections, then, are of supreme importance.

Through even a five-minute exercise, in which we sit quietly and look about, we can become aware that the present is the point of power. In this exercise, we gently remind ourselves that we aren’t at the mercy of our past beliefs unless we think we are. We have the full freedom to insert new creative goals in our point-of-power exercises. Next, we relax, to give our fresh suggestions time to begin working within us. Next, physically we make a simple gesture or act, no matter how modest, that is in line with our desires for the future. Periodically we repeat the exercise — but easily, without pressure, confident that we’re doing well. Action is thought in physical motion.

My wife and I are “counterparts” — entities psychically connected to each other, and to other men, women and children alive now in this country and in others. The connection can be conscious, unconscious, or both. Many of us will never meet physically, but as a group all of us are exploring related lifetime themes in ways that no individual can do.

Styles of Thought

The scientific framework of reference has become equated with the term “rational thinking,” to such an extent that any other slant of thought automatically seems to be irrational. Thought has become, in that regard, too specialized, prejudiced, and inflexible.

Now there are styles of thought. Each individual has his or her own style of thinking, a peculiar, rich, individual mixture of speculations, fantasies, ideocentric ways of using subjective and objective data. Science has so dominated the world of thought, however, that many nuances and areas once considered quite “rational” have become quite unrespectable. Science  tries to stick to what it can prove.

Unfortunately, it tends to set up a worldview that is then based upon certain material only. We end up with separate disciplines: biology, psychology, physics, mathematics, and so forth, each with its own group of facts, jealously guarded, each providing its own worldview: the world as seen through biology, or reality as seen through the eyes of physics.

There is no separate field that combines all of that information, or applies the facts of one discipline to the facts of another discipline, so overall, science, with its brand of rational thought, can offer no even, suggestive, hypothetical, comprehensive ideas of what reality is. It seems that each individual is in effect isolated in certain vital regards — given, say, a genetic heritage and a certain amount of unspecified energy with which to run the body’s machinery. Intent, purpose, or desire do not apply in that picture.

The individual is, again, a stranger, almost an alien, in his or her own environment, in which he must struggle to survive, not only against the “uncaring” forces of the immediate environment, but against the genetic determinism. He or she must fight against his or her own body, overemphasize its susceptibility to built-in defects, diseases, and against a built-in time bomb, so to speak, when without warning extinction will arrive. Science does not stress the cooperative forces of nature. It glories in distinctions, specifications, and categories, and is quite blind, generally speaking, to the uniting forces that are of course every bit as real. Therefore, when I speak of the natural person being also the magical person, it is easy to transpose even that idea into more isolated terms than I intend.

It is not just that each person has his or her source in a “magical” dimension, from which his or her overall life emerges, but that the private source itself is a part of the very energy that upholds the entire planet and its inhabitants, and the overall construct that we understand as the universe.

Fields, or planes of interrelatedness connect all kinds of life, supporting it not through, say, just one system — a biological one or a spiritual one — but at every conceivable point of its existence. We are not just given so much energy, in those terms earlier mentioned. “New” energy is everywhere available. Again, there are no closed systems. Again, the environment is conscious and alive. There are constant communications between all positions of our body and all portions of the environment.

In our terms this means that we do not have to rely upon what we think of as our private resources alone. Basically, value fulfillment is one of the most important characteristics of existence, so that all things act individually and together in ways that best provide for the overall fulfillment of the entire construct.

We were born because we desired to be born. A plant comes to life for the same reason. We live in a different frame of reference than a plant, however: We have more choice available. We interact with nature differently. Our intellect is meant to help us make choices. It allows us to perceive certain probabilities within  a physical time context. We use the intellect properly when it is allowed to perceive physical conditions as clearly as possible. Then it can make the most beneficial decisions as to what goals we want to achieve.

Those goals are usually conceptualized desires, and once formed they act in a fashion like magnets, drawing from those vast fields of interrelatedness the kinds of conditions best suited to their fulfillment. The intellect alone cannot bring about the fulfillment of those goals. The intellect alone cannot bring about one motion of the body. It must count upon those other properties that it does indeed set into motion — that spontaneous array of inner complexity, that orderly magic.

When the intellect is used properly, it thinks of a goal and automatically sets the body in motion toward it, and automatically arouses the other levels of communication unknown to it, so that all forces work together toward the achievement. Consider a hypothetical goal as a target. When properly used, the intellect imagines the target and imaginatively then attains it. If it were a physical target, the person would stand bow and arrow in hand, thinking only of hitting the bull’s eye, mentally concentrating upon it, making perhaps some learned gestures — proper footing or whatever — and the body’s magical properties would do the rest.

When the intellect is improperly used, however, it is as if the intellect feels required to somehow know or personally direct all of those inner processes. When the erroneous belief systems and negativity connected with so-called rational reason apply, then it is as if our person sees the target, but instead of directing his or her attention to it he of she concentrates upon all of the different ways that his or her arrow could go wrong: It could fall to the left or the right, go too far or not far enough, break in the air, fall from his or her hand, or in multitudinous other ways betray his or her intent.

He or she has switched his or her attention from the target, of course, completely. He or she projected upon the present event the picture of his or her fears, rather than the picture of his or her original intent. His or her body, responding to his or her mental images and his or her thoughts, brings out actions that mirror his or her confusion.

In other words, the magical approach and the so-called rational one are to be combined in a certain fashion for best results. People sometimes write me, telling of their intent to make money — or rather, to have it. They concentrate upon money, so they say, and wait for it in full faith that it will be attracted to them because of their belief and concentration. They might do the point of power exercise, for example. They may also, however, have quit their jobs, ignored impulses to find other work, or to take any rational approaches, and rely upon, say, the magical approach alone. This does not work either, of course.

As I uses the magical approach, and as you use it, we will see that it blends in perfectly with the rest of existence, inspires the intellect, inspires physical motion — for it activates physical properties.

I will continue describing the ways the two approaches work together. The main point I want to make is, however, the fact that out private source of power is a portion of that greater field of interrelatedness, in which our being is securely couched. It is not something we have to strain after. It was effortlessly ours at birth, and before, and it carries with it its own emotional and intuitive comprehensions — comprehensions that can indeed support us throughout all of our physical existence. If we understand that, then in a large manner many of our fears will jointly vanish.

Desire as Action

To the world of the intellect, a glass door must be considered solid, as it is in the world of physical senses. In other quite as factual terms, indeed in the larger frameworks of facts, the door of course is not solid at all, as no objects are. Obviously that is known to science.

Science delegates the world of nature as the realm of exterior natural events. Its view of nature is therefore mechanistic. The natural self, however, like the rest of nature, possesses a rich dimension of inside psychological depth, that science, because of its own definitions, cannot perceive. Telepathy and clairvoyance, for example, are a part of natural effects, but they belong to a nature so much more expansive than science’s definitions that they have been made to appear as highly unnatural eccentricities of behavior rather than as natural components of consciousness.

It is also for that reason that they seem to fall outside of the realm of the s-a-n-e. Such characteristics are, however, basic properties of the natural person. They do not appear very well under the auspices of the scientific method, because the scientific method is itself programmed to perceive only information that fits into its preconceived patterns. Such abilities appear to be unpredictable, discontinuous, only because we are so relatively unaware of what is actually quite constant psychological behavior. That is, such abilities operate so smoothly, so continuously, and with such ease that we become aware of them only under certain conditions. We are aware of what seem to be isolated hints of odd characteristics.

The intellect is basically able to handle many kinds of information, and information systems. It is far more flexible that we presently allow it to be. It can handle several main world views at once, realizing that they are each methods of perceiving and approaching reality. To some degree historically speaking, that sort of situation operated in the past when — comparatively speaking, now — people realized that there was indeed an inner world of complexity and richness that could be approached in certain fashions, one that existed alongside with the physical world, so that the two intersected. Certain approaches worked in one area, and others worked in the inner reality.

The intellect could handle both approaches, operating with separate assumptions. There were separate assumptions that applied to different realities. I do not mean to idealize those times. In so-called modern ages, however, the intellect has been stripped down, so to speak. Science perceived the spectacular complexity of exterior reality, but turned its sights completely away from any recognition — any at all — until regarded subjectivity itself as a mere throw-away product, accidentally formed by a mindless matter.

All of this applies to our situation, for I want you to thoroughly understand, intellectually and emotionally, the errors of current thought, so that we can see that our material is indeed providing us not only with “creative material,” but with a more factual presentation of the framework in which we have our existence.

In modern times, then, the intellect was finally left with only one acceptable world view, with one set of assumptions, with only one main approach to reality and experience. The acceptable assumptions to a large extent ran directly contradictory to built-in biological, spiritual, and psychological assumptions that are a part of man’s and woman’s heritage. The intellect does try to order experience, to make sense out of perception. When it is enriched by having in its possession several world views, then it does an excellent job of merging those into meaningful patterns, of sorting information and sending it to the proper places, so to speak.

It understands, for example, that clairvoyant material is a part of the personality’s overall characteristics, so it is not afraid of perceiving it — and it is able to separate such information confusion from present physical sense perception. Orderliness, then, is one of its main characteristics. When it is given only one world view, and only one group of assumptions, its orderly nature causes it to throw out all information that does not fit. It is almost forced to make an orderly picture, say like a jigsaw puzzle picture, while being denied half of the pieces.

The intellect is not to blame. It does the best it can under those conditions.

Now in our dreams, we are quite clearly seeing the threshold between physical reality and the magical dimension in which that physical reality has its source. We are being shown — or showing ourselves — the difference in the rules or assumptions between the two. The dog’s desire for food led him to walk magically through the door, for the desires of the natural creature are satisfied with an ease that has nothing to do with our ideas of work. What I am getting at is the introduction of the concepts of a different kind of work — very valuable, vital work that is performed at another level and in a different fashion.

A prime example, of course, is the “work” done to keep each and every creature alive and breathing, the “work” done to keep the planets in their places, the “work” being done so that one evolutionist can meditate over his or her theories.

Now in our dreams we get the feeling of that kind of work, or action. It is the given power of the world, the given power of nature. It is the directed force of value fulfillment. In other terms it is of course the energy of All That Is. The trouble is that the rational view of life has separated man and woman from a sense of his or her own power source. When he or she have a problem, the rational approach to its solution seems the only answer, and often, of course, it is no answer at all.

I want to make sure that I am right. I try to go ahead and not go ahead at the same time. I try to be daring and cautious, brave and safe. This applies to some extent to each of us, of course, precisely because we are gifted strongly both intellectually and intuitively. We try rationalize our creativity, to some extent. The rational line of thought finds creativity highly disruptive, so in those terms as highly gifted creative people, we would have encountered some difficulties in any case.

It is time that we regarded such difficulties instead as challenges that are a part of a creative adventure that we have ourselves chosen. We chose the adventure because it is the kind best suited to our own individual value fulfillment. In reconciling the many concepts and contradictions for ourselves, we also lead the way for many others. It would, again, help considerably if we thought of our work more as an adventure, an exciting creative adventure, than of work in our old terms.

This will allow us to include the feeling of inner, magical “work” in our calculations. It would also begin to give us a feeling for the magical support that upholds us, and our lives — the support that we can count upon, and that can bring about the solution to our physical difficulties. Here, the vital word is ease of effortlessness. If we want to feed a dog in the physical world — and he or she is on the other side of the door — we must open it. In the inner world we or the dog can walk through the door without effort, because desire is action. Desire is action.

In the inner world, our desires bring about their own fulfillment, effortlessly. That inner world, and the exterior one, intersect and interweave. They only appear separate. In the physical world, time may have to elapse, or whatever. Conditions may have to change, or whatever, but the desire will bring about the proper results. The feeling of effortlessness is what is important. It is quite proper for our intellect to understand this, and to say, simply now, ” That is not my realm. I will leave the solution to that problem where it belongs. We will use the magical approach here.”

Of course, an entire reorientation is instead implied, and that entire reorientation will effortlessly bring about a new relationship in our bodies and our lives, and with the adventure we embark upon. We will simply automatically get better, because the framework will allow us to do so.

Within our time scheme each physically-endowed consciousness, whatever its form or size or complexity, inherently seeks to fulfill its own highest potential — not only for itself, but for the benefit of each other such consciousness in our reality. There is no drifting through life, then, but a built-in search for the fulfillment of values, whatever possible successes, conflicts, or failures may be involved, and no matter how modest or great or complex any of those qualities may be. The ecstasy and love of being always operate to ensure the quality and growth of life’s existence through value fulfillment.

Human Beings Have The Blessed Creative Capacity to Do Much Better

Women do most things as well as men — they actually outperform men in many areas, both intellectually and intuitively.

For example, women test as equal to men in sensitivity to sounds; clear, logical, and rational thinking: accurate reading and writing; memory for design in areas like drafting and illustration; number memory; tweezer dexterity, foresight, as in the flow of ideas; subjective personality links to specialized work.

Women exceed men in such areas as finger dexterity; accounting aptitudes; rate of idea flow, as in sales, writing, and teaching; observing small changes in physical detail; non-tangible ideas requiring complex vocabulary, as in medicine and law; the ability to visualize three-dimensional relationships, as in engineering.

According to these tests, us poor guys exceed women in only two categories: structural visualization, as in engineering, mechanics and building; and measures of simple muscular strength.

Everything on Earth Remains The Same Except Human Activity

I could list hundreds of examples of what I mean. This is one of those obvious ideas that seem childish once it’s thought of. I don’t care whether or not it’s profound thought; it has meaning for me. But as far as I know, we humans are the only species that’s obsessed with ‘change’ , and ‘progress’ , and ‘controlling or mastering nature’ ; with learning about our past and with charting our future. We strive toward an impossible , or at least rosy, future in which we will have met all our challenges, so that we’ll live in some sort of unreal wonderland on earth. What do we do next — or will we give up on that idea too? Perhaps we’ll spend all of our time contemplating each other!

The rabbits in our neighborhood would continue to live as usual without our help. although they might miss nibbling upon the leafy vegetables in the local gardens. The fish and all of the complex minutiae of the local river bottoms would go on living as they always have. The sheep I see in the woods north of Vegas would continue to bound through the brush and among the mountains. They’d live  the same as ever, since it’s illegal for us to feed them — although they do like to move down the mountains at night and sample certain shrubs we have kindly planted about our houses.

In my darker moods I find myself thinking that I love the earth and everything upon it except the increasingly destructive activities of human beings — and sometimes I wonder about the human beings themselves! I love the deserts and forests, the oceans and rivers and lakes of the earth, the plains and the poles, the marshes and the mountains. And I know that in the Puerto Rico trench in the Atlantic Ocean, life in the sea at more than 8,000 feet down goes on just as it has for many millennia. It’s been like that for all of the interwoven life forms of the poles and the tropics, of the deserts and woodlands and prairies. Each species lives within its environment, whatever its conditions. And I think that in it way each life form must know that and love its home and has no desire to change or destroy it.