If you look at the way positive or negative feedbacks travel, they are exactly the same, leaving a person and landing within you, the only difference is the content or is the only difference from where it comes?
Or is it the real affect, you.
Can you change a positive to a negative by how you hear it?
Is it possible our state of being had more to do with the incoming message than the message itself?
How about our expectations of the person and the difference in what they are saying compared to what we believe they should be saying, that our forecast is failing us?
I have a feeling that our inner reception area is very much filled with expectations and needs and desires, leaving little room for incoming truths to show up as themselves, we have demands and commands for them.
Is it possible there are no negative messages, just messages to show us the way? And a negative becomes a positive if you lay its truthfulness against your life.
It is my belief that there are truthful positive feedbacks, and then there are pretend positive feedbacks.
Pretend ones are much more common than truthful feedbacks…and way easy to give. Words that won’t hurt another’s pretend life…for you don’t want to be the one to shatter their world with a truth.
I have great respect and admiration for the folks who tell you what you don’t want to hear, compared to the ones who just are parrots to you.
Mostly when folks get what they call a negative comment, they never stick around long enough to ask why; it is the story behind the remark that’s important.
The one instance that I stuck around to ask why, I was shocked to find, that this person cared about Art as deeply as I did, and he was able to tell me why. I had watered down the art with craft like ideas, and when explained, it made perfect sense to me. That if I had aspirations of being an Artist, there were guidelines, however subtle that kept art from being a craft, and I had crossed the line.
His truthfulness kept me on track, he didn’t pretend positive feedback to spare my feelings, for sparing me would have hurt my art.
This is true in all of life…sparing our feelings hurt them in the long run, for we are led to believe that which isn’t true.
My most positive influences in my life have been folks who have been brutally honest, not caring about hurting my feelings; rather they say what they have to say in order for me stop hurting myself by pretending that which isn’t true.
Isn’t a false positive really a negative in disguise?
I also believe we need huge amounts of false positives to keep our lives of pretend working; we need others to shield us from ourselves. But, if you are standing in your own truth, you don’t need anyone’s feedback to keep your life going, your life just goes.
You are as you are, there isn’t this thirst for others to keep your life going, and you are able to be self-sustaining.
You seek out any part of your own life that isn’t truthful, wanting to uncover instead of cover up the pretend places.
Living authentically is to live outside the covers, to crawl out yourself and not pretend even to make others feel okay.
It seems this false positive can go either way, flowing from us as well as into us. It is up to us to put up a filter that can discern fact from fiction, both coming and going.
Art and writing seem to be the process of building this filter, of facing yourself for the first time without the shield of pretending.
Tag: truth
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Shield of Pretending.
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With a body or without!
Spiritual Education
“Fortunate is the seeker who has not been led away from the straight and narrow path by diversions and popularized attractions. People spend lifetimes searching for authentic teachings and become sidetracked by the seduction of attractive, glamorized aberrations from truth. These turn out to be fictional or romanticized fantasies that attract the naïve person’s inner child. Spiritual fairy tales abound and impress the credulous for whom anything labeled ‘spiritual’ is imbued with a magical glamour. To go through that stage is routine during initial, uncritical enthusiasm and exploration.”“ The primary problem initially is the lack of awareness of the difference between the truly spiritual reality and the astral, paranormal, or supernatural domains. To the naïve, these latter alternatives seem amazing and impressive. This is due to the discovery that there are surprisingly more areas of human experience that the strictly physical, emotional, and mental ones. Consequently, a ‘right-on’ psychic reading is indeed impressive to an erstwhile, naïve seeker or novitiate. It is also easy to become sidetracked by the seemingly astonishing wonder of a whole new dimension of possible realities.”
“The majority of popular best-selling, supposedly spiritual books is actually fictional, and their average level of truth is a calibrated level 190, as are slick appearing ‘spiritual’ magazines that glamorize fallacious fantasies of ‘other dimensions’, and so on. The paradox is that the appeal is to the naïve seeker who has not yet mastered this dimension, much less other fanciful ones.”
“There are, of course, other dimensions and ultimate realities that are well represented by adepts, trance readers, channelers, psychics, clairvoyants, shamans, magicians, ‘masters’, deceased celebrities, erstwhile astrologers, throwers of Rune stones, and more. To add to the glamour, many of these diversions have large collections of faithful followers and enthusiasts who are impressed and thereby influenced, as well as seduced, by the magical notion of the unseen paranormal. Also popular are ‘ancient secret mysteries’, UFO religions, primitive rites, magic symbols, crystals, incantations, energy manipulation, and spirits from other realms.”
“Classical spiritual traditions and integrous scripture do not refute the supernatural/paranormal, but warn “not to go there”. The same advice is also prescribed by all true spiritual masters and enlightened teachers. By conscious calibration research, all such ‘entities’ on the ‘other side’ can be calibrated, as well as ‘fallen gurus’ from other eras who succumbed to the illusory gain of power over others by spiritual seduction. (See Lewis, 2001; Partridge, 2003)”
“The so-called ‘astral circus’ was at its most influential in ancient Mesopotamia. The expertise of the adepts, many of who are still the same as they were in that era, have perfected their skills over long periods of earthly time. Like an experienced expert salesman, they intuitively pick up on a vulnerability or a weakness, especially proneness to glamorization. If such entities were indeed what they claim to be, they would have long ago evolved on to the celestial realms.”
“There is no lack of integrous, reliable spiritual truth accessible by ordinary means. Thus, the seeking of the extraordinary is a trap for the unwary. An ego that is ‘out of body’ is actually just the same as an ego in a body, except that it now has the mystification of being physically elusive. Exploration of other dimensions can be facilitated and learned by induced and altered states of consciousness. The primary temptation is one of child-like curiosity. On the other hand, there are some entities on the ‘other side’ that calibrate over 200 but they do not have any information that is not available by ordinary means (e.g., be kind to your neighbor).”
“Supranormal qualities arise as an experiential reality when consciousness levels reach the high 500s as a consequence of the rising kundalini spiritual energy field. These phenomena, classically termed siddhis, are the normal expression of consciousness levels that are beyond linear. The student is advised to be aware that they are not personal and to merely witness the phenomena. By so doing, it will be evident that the phenomena are qualities specific to the spiritual energy itself; they are not personal because they are not controllable by the person. The phenomena, on the other hand, can be impressive as one witnesses the seemingly miraculous events unfold effortlessly. The reason they appear to be miraculous is because of their being witnessed by the linear mind with is limited perception of cause and effect. The unfolding of the seeming miraculous is merely ‘normal’ from a higher perspective.”
“These paranormal spiritual phenomena are described by mystics and saints of various religious denominations and have been reported throughout the ages. By calibration, ‘sainthood’ represents level 570 and above. The siddhis are indeed somewhat wondrous to behold, and the spiritual energy field may, of its own, transmit to other people so that healings take place in accord with karmic propensities. The ‘miraculous’ is thus not volitional or controllable, nor is it the consequence of any person; thus, there is no ‘person’ who performs miracles. It is instead the consequence of the healing power of the Self.”
“The siddhis arise of their own and bring about the capacity for psychomentry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, distant vision, and other telepathic types of faculties. They are also unpredictable and evanescent. Some come and go over variable periods of time that may last from weeks to months to a number of years. With forewarning, the student who witnesses and experiences these phenomena can easily dismiss the temptation of ownership and its implied specialness. Integrity and humility preclude claiming ownership of the phenomena and thus being trapped by an illusion. The siddhis are discussed at some length in “Transcending the Levels of Consciousness.”
David Hawkins – Discovery of the Presence of God
What I found so disheartening, is that the naïve seeker can fall for the same foolery from the ‘other side’ as well as they can from this side.
Now, I have no experience of ‘fallen gurus’ from the other side, but I have witnessed the fallen gurus on this side, preying upon the weak and confused, making them more weak and confused.
I love the line from the Buddha, who says, “If you see a guru along the way, kill him.” Meaning follow no one but your own inner knowing, your own emotional feelings, to set your own compass, to question all things, to seek to be curious, to ask the questions, to look above and below, to be like a child and accept nothing without a question of Why!!!!Isn’t it chilling that there are fallen gurus on the other side looking for egos in bodies to gain power over??? Again, whether this is the ultimate truth, I can’t say from experience, but somehow it feels correct.
Any guru worth his salt will let you keep your own truth, be he with a body or without!
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As far as I can tell.
From David Hawkin’s book, Truth vs Falsehood a chapter called, Spiritual Truth.
“While the majority of people in the United States believe in God (90-92%, CNN News, April 2004) and therefore tend to look to established religions for the highest truth, the source of the truth upon which all religions depend stems from the even higher primary source of spiritual reality itself. Thus, religion is the institutional consequence of spiritual truth rather than is origination or primary source. However, because religion incorporates the truth revealed by its founders, the derived teachings are sufficient and satisfactory for the great majority of people for whom the information is facilitated and made available as scripture by institutionalized religion.”
“There as been a great deal of research into the historic origins of the scriptures of all religions, resulting in much discourse and debate over the centuries as to specifics, such as dates, people, and authenticity. Some finalized versions of scriptures were formalized by exclusive councils and became “canons” by virtue of scholastic authority. Technically, interpretation of their meaning is the providence theology, epistemology, metaphysics, and ontology (the science of life).”
“All the great spiritual teachers throughout history were mystics, and the source of their awareness of spiritual truth was the result of Enlightenment and transformational Realization of the Reality of Divinity as the subjective knowingness that ensues from advanced consciousness by virtue of being at One with that Known. Thus, the avatar does not speak from knowing “about” but from the actual Presence within, which radiates forth and constitutes the Essence of that which replaces the mind as the source of understanding and Knowingness (the classic Purusha). The process whereby this transformation occurs has been described in the history of each saint, safe, and divine teacher and is often included in the scripture itself.”
“From a purely research viewpoint, the calibrations of levels of consciousness can be aptly applied to verify the reality of any spiritual teaching, including their traditional scriptures. Each level represents the actuality of the possibilities of consciousness and the progress from the linear to the nonlinear context, which is infinite and beyond space, time or location.”
“The source of the highest spiritual truth is non-mental, and the intellect has difficulty comprehending this critical fact because the mind is intrinsically dualistic and limited, expecting a “this” to come from a “that”. In the advanced spiritual Reality, duality dissolves because the “this” is the “that.” The seeker and the Sought become One with the transcendence of the limitation of duality, i.e., Realization of the Self, Illumination, and Enlightenment, i.e., “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
(he list some calibrations, I will post a few that I recognize)
A Course in Miracles, workbook – 600
A Course in Miracles, textbook – 550
Bhagavad-Gita- 910
Bodhidharma Zen Teachings – 795
Dead Sea Scrolls – 260
Gospel of St. Luke – 699
Gospel of St. Thomas – 660
King James Bible from the Greek –475
Lao-Tsu Teachings –610
New Testament (King James Version after the deletion of the Book of revelations) 790
Torah – 550
Trinity (concept) 945
Yoga Sutras, Patanjali – 740“Displayed above are integrous calibrated truths available to humankind, some for over thousands of years of evolutionary history. Any single selection is, in and of itself, sufficient for a lifetime of study and spiritual endeavor. As aspirants discover, it is one thing to know about the truth and quite another to understand it or, even more importantly to become it. Spiritual progress is simultaneously simple yet complex, subtle and yet cataclysmic, inspired and yet intimidating. To transcend the limitations of the ego requires intention, integrity of purpose, and resolve (plus grace: the assistance of an advanced teacher and positive karma). The journey often starts seemingly accidentally or as a consequence of curiosity. It then gathers interest and finally involvement, followed by commitment and the discovery of undreamed-of rewards.”
“To facilitate this endeavor, scriptures and the great spiritual classics supply critical information. Commitment to the goals of spiritual progress, in and of itself, has a transformative effect on brain physiology and attracts spiritual energies that shift alignment and power of concordant attractor energy fields. These recontextualize subjective reality and optimize realization.”
“From the calibration levels, it becomes evident that the great sages from the early Aryan culture of ancient India represented the first major emergence of the highest spiritual awareness available to man recorded. The same truths emerged later in different cultures and eras, completely and separately from each other, and yet the realization of the nature of the highest truth was essentially identical in each case, with some variations of expression that reflected cultural and linguistic differences. Thus, truth as such is not exclusive but universal, or it would not be truth. Therefore, spiritual or religious claims of exclusivity indicate the interference and errors of the egos of later followers of the original sages.”
“Truth by definition, has no limitation or qualification and is not discriminatory. Inasmuch as everyone already has a calibratable level of consciousness at birth, the circumstances of that even would imply that they are not accidental but consequent to patterns of spiritual evolution as they manifest in the physical world as culture, family, time, and circumstances. (Consciousness research reveals that the particulars of every individual’s birth are absolutely, perfectly karmically just and maximally advantageous, despite appearances or personal opinion to the contrary.)”
“The calibrations of the world’s greatest teachers are concordant with human experience and validation over great periods of time despite the major cultural changes to which they are relatively immune due to their nonlinear essence. Because truth exists independently of its discovery, like gold, its rediscovery elicits excitement and attraction to a new source.”
“Advanced spiritual students value all sources of truth and often study combinations of them. Thus, the study of Christian mystics clarifies the truths revealed by the Vedas, and, in turn the Vedas clarify Buddhist teachings that then clarify the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
“ The limitation of traditional religious practice has been that it often gets involved with the peripheral issues of times, places, personalities, and ethnic propensities (i.e. form and content). Of greater significance is the study of material that is intrinsic of the truths revealed (i.e., the field) and not the circumstances of the events, as anecdotally interesting as they might be. These trappings, which are actually extraneous, have a negative effect in that they are deceptive, diversionary, and lead to such absurdities as people killing each other over whether or not one should wear a bear or worship on a certain day of the week, the designation of which did not even exist at the time of the appearance of the great avatars. In Realty, which is nontemporal, there are no “days of the week.”
“Religious zealots who kill “nonbelievers” for trivia, such as hats, beards, diets, and designated days of devotion, display the negative fallout of undue emphasis on cultural eccentricities. As readers of the original scriptures can see for themselves, every day is a day of devotion; every day is Sabbath. In the hands of barbarians, trivial differences are magnified and then become merely tools of war that “justify” serious sacrilege and violation of even the simplest of spiritual principles. Perhaps transmission of spiritual truth is best done by example and attraction rather than by promulgation to the people who are incapable of appreciating its value, appropriate use and intention.”
“True missionaries spread valid information and teach by example. Those who are incorrectly motivated become sources of oppression, which leads to revolt (e.g., the Boxer Rebellion).”“Missionary zeal reaches it ultimate expression as theocracies and the establishment of state religions that utilize force and punitive government regulations. The history of Europe reflects the utilization of religion in the name of monarchies and power struggles involving the nonintegrous exploitation of church authority. Religious conflict has led to religions wars, which have traditionally been the worst of all wars over the centuries and in almost all parts of the globe, even as reflected in current events arising out of the Middle East. Spirituality unites, whereas, unfortunately, the downside of religion divides. Severe distortions of religious truths lead to them becoming the exact opposites in practice.”
“Questionable Scriptures and Notes on the Christian Bible”
Old Testament – 190
Book of Revelations – 70
David HawkinsWhat is so amazing is that it seems instead of seeking the truth that the great masters and sages sought, religions are fighting over semantics on the masters journey, completely failing to see the journey of truth while fighting about how they got there.
Religion has done more damage to the truth in life than any other source as far as I can tell.
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In the Land of Falsehood.
In David Hawkin’s book “Truth vs Falsehood” he writes,
“The Reality of Freedom and Happiness.”“Just as all that is destructive has a common source, so do freedom, success, health and peace have a common source, which is that of spiritual truth and integrity.”
“ Everyone is potentially free to be free. It is merely a matter of choice to follow the pathway to truth to the degree that one can discover it as identifiable, knowable, and confirmable. Instead of envying or hating success, the truly successful imitate it, copy it, identify with it, and develop the patterns. To take responsibility for one’s own actions and their consequences is, it itself, extremely powerful and almost instantly raises one’s calibrated level of consciousness to over 200.”
Above 200 – Levels of Truth
Below 200 – Levels of Falsehood“An extremely valuable insight that is learned by all spiritually evolved persons in the course of their development is seeing ones own personal consciousness as the decisive influence that determines all that occurs in one’s life.”
“Another operative principle, whose recognition results in greater aspects for positionalities, is that the mind either consciously or unconsciously tends to manifest that which is held in mind. It is very helpful to see that, in reality chocolate is not the enemy of vanilla but represents only a contrasting option. It is also well to recognize the infantile ego that secretly hides within is extremely needy, constantly hoping for praise and input, and is obsessed with being “right” as well as nursing “wrongs,” “grievances,” injustices and grudges. It takes little reflection to see that the ego gets much energy and benefit from negative postionalities, and that spiritual evolution is accelerated greatly by the willingness to forego these dubious payoffs in return for real gains.”
Pathway to Freedom and Happiness
“The steps out of failure, unhappiness, frustration, lack, want, anger, and depression are deceptively simple. Life is a voyage comparable to being out at sea in which a shift of one degree on the ships compass will determine by the end of the trip whether or not one is hundreds of miles off course. The strongest too, which already exists within, is the spiritual will itself, which when firmly set, will face and take on any obstacle. It is this spiritual will that determines the success of the venture. From subjective experience, as well as many years of clinical practice, spiritual education, and research, it is confirmed that the spiritual will is the primordial rudder that determines not only this lifetime but classically termed karma (cal 1,000)”
“By one simple decision, the impossible becomes possible because the lead sinkers that were attached to the cork have been released and now the cork effortlessly rises because of the density and power of the field. Thus, one can let go of the egoistic illusion that spiritual progress is difficult and that one has to do it all alone. On the contrary, illusions of lack disappear and powerful energies now help to sustain one’s progress, which is now accompanied by the pleasure of increased self esteem, and the world magically begins to appear to be a friendly and helpful place. The brains neurochemistry changes in a positive direction, and like a butterfly out of a cocoon, the etheric brain springs forth as a consequence of the onset of the flow of spiritual (i.e. kundalini) energy, and the experience of life and the self in the world transform.”
“ It will be discovered that the ego consists of interlocking building blocks and that to move even one unsettles the whole pile which then begins to fall of its own gravity. Even a seemingly small effort can have very major effects, and one discovers that just a simple smile can totally change one’s life. The many thousands of people who follow self-improvement and spiritual pathways confirm the reality of this discovery.”
“Following is a list of “winner” attitudes, all of which are quite simple to choose and have extremely long-term benefits. Life lived in the energy field of a calibration level over 200 is quite different from life lived from the conscious level of 180.
Available 265
Balanced 305
Benign 225
Calm 250
Considerate 295
Content 255
Cordial 255
Dependable 250
Diligent 210
Diplomatic 210
Easy going 210
Equitable 365
Ethical 305
Fair 305
Faithful 365
Firm 245
Flexible 245
Friendly 280
Genuine 255
Glad 335
Happy 395
Hard Work 200
Healthy 360
Helpful 220
Honest 200
Honorable 255
Humane 260
Humility 270
Idealistic 295
Kind 220
David HawkinsWhat I found so affirming is that your Spiritual Will is the motivator and that by changing just one little thing, your ship will sail in a new direction, especially over time. And you are the one who can go inside and dig down and find the will you want and by standing by it, life will change.
The other thing that I love is that just by owing your responsibility and accepting the consequences of your actions you rise to the level of truth. For when you blame anything outside of yourself, it registers Falsehood and is below the level of 200.
Now, these numbers don’t mean as much as the words or implication of the numbers. That your life will change when you become responsible for it, you will see that your action delivered to you its consequence. So instead of blaming the consequence, get ahead of it by changing the action. The falsehood is that it is someone else responsibility for your happiness.
And what is wildly exciting and filled with freedom is that it all begins with you. Just as Gandhi stated, “you are the change you are waiting for.”
What I see is that your own truths when faced in a responsible manner automatically raises your happiness level, while in our heads it seems that it will lower it.
We believe that if we show our truths, expose the reality of our lives, all hell will break lose, but in fact the opposite happens, heaven appears.
I didn’t even know there was a number system out there that could calibrate the truth of things, but how curious it is that the higher the number the better you feel or in my case, I headed out and steered my world by feelings.
I simply stopped doing things that didn’t feel good or that had terrible consequences to me feeling good.
Some things seem at face value easy to do and harmless, but if you look at how it sits with your integrity it is huge.
The greater tragedy in this business of Truth vs Falsehood is the application of my old religions tool of ‘blessing away the sins’ when in fact it is removing the truth from our lives.
I see that religion as preaching falsehood and I know that many within there would be in shock and awe of my blaspheming.
Yet, it is only when you have been on the receiving end of them disregarding the actions of a pedophile, that you can see the application of this.
Instead of all preaching and singing halting when a pedophile is in their mix, they stay the party line and bless his sins away.
How they believe they are heading in the direction of Heaven is beyond me…for it seems that just to arrive at the level of truth you have to take responsibility and their consequences, until then you live in the land of falsehood.
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Kept this Pattern Going.
Being a mother in the middle and having a generation before me and a generation below me puts me in a great place to witness the intricacies of how relationships are formed and how the legacy is passed on.
Being aware of the legacy you are in while you are in it is near impossible…it takes stepping out to get a clear view.
I leaped out of my childhood legacy when my mother’s moral tower displayed her husband of 49 years as a pedophile, it was then I knew the generation before me, and sadly I could also see the generation beneath me and how one man had touched two generations while my mother loved him.
I saw him in his truth, her in her truth, and then me in mine.
I saw the river that flowed beneath all of us and the only way to escape that river is to see what you are swimming in.
Within me lay all the layers of teaching and years of treatment and formation, in horror I saw her in me…
Within a few days I was able to see the structure of our family and how it all was flimsily held together and how each insane idea supported another insane concept, the maze was intricately held together by unquestioning authority.
To see the shocking truth of a pedophile father and the undying “love” of his wife towards him, shatters the scaffolding that I had built called me.
I saw my own insanity.
I then saw how insanely I had treated my children based upon the morals and values of a woman who ‘loved and supported’ a pedophile.
Stuck in the middle with an insane woman above me, mistreated children below me and me aware, I then had to unhitch myself from her teachings and long held beliefs while continuing to raise children but change everything.
In the middle, I knew I couldn’t change my mother, but I had a chance at redoing me and then I had the hope that if I could, my children would then repattern themselves after the new me.
What a tight spot to be in, yet with great freedom.
I knew intuitively that they felt my every move.
Where in the past I had blindly trampled upon their lives, I now knew that I could inflict pain or raise their soul.
It has been my intentions, while not always successful, to see the children.
To be very conscious of how my choices in life impacted theirs.
For we are all strung on the same string, the string called family legacy.
You simply can’t escape the line of your parents, but you can change the dance steps, the outcome, and the way you live your life.
It takes great strength and courage to see the insanity of an abusive family and to see the traces poking out in you, to own your insane madness and to feel the rage of injustice, and the unknowingness of being a child and following along, with love, trust and faith.
I found myself pretty much empty of good value, and had to start from scratch building my own tower of morals and values, and I started with the foundation of truth.
I began building a whole new structure using the pieces of insanity, for its denial is what has kept this pattern going.
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Alice Miller, again. I love her fearlessness.
Chapter 4 in Banished Knowledge by Alice Miller titled “Why I Reject Psychoanalysis Also as a Therapy Method.”
“Following my interview for the April 1987 issue of the German Journal Psychologie heute (Psychology Today), in which I declared my break with psychoanalysis, I was asked several times whether I didn’t owe psychoanalysis the means that enabled me to query it. Today I can answer this question with a clear No. As recently as in my preface to the first German edition of “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware”, I succumbed to the error myself. Yet later developments showed me unmistakably that psychoanalysis is a maze from which it is very difficult to find a way out. Without the illusionary help of psychoanalysis, which further the resistance to knowledge about past events, there is no doubt that I would have found my way to the truth sooner.”
“I owe my first awakening to the spontaneous pictures that I began to paint in 1973. Nevertheless, even years later, 1981, I still closed my eyes to the fact that psychoanalysis was the very thing that kept me away from feelings blocked since my childhood and thus from the truth. I didn’t discover this until, thanks to J. Konrad Stettbacher’s method, I could approach my childhood step by step.”
“What I find most convincing about this method is its openness to creativity, its precision, its effectiveness, its verifiability, and its respect for the uniqueness and special quality of each individual life and history. Since it makes the path to reality possible and is not afraid of reality, it is free of lies, of being enmeshed in any way with them, free of clichés, pedagogy, moralizing norms, spiritual mystifications, and any and all associated ideological trimmings.”
“On the other hand, there is proof that these elements are present in psychoanalysis, and I have supplied such proofs in my earlier books. Today I realize: It was an illusion to believe that the remains of pedagogy could be removed from psychoanalysis, leaving it still suitable for the liberation of those seeking help. It is no coincidence that psychoanalysis has not yet undertaken any revision of it immanent pedagogy; it cannot do this, for as soon as the pedagogic scaffolding is removed the whole structure will collapse like a house of cards. Since in the past psychoanalysis has served only to disguise childhood traumas, how can it be expected to help abused children? This inability is revealed not only in its theory but also in every detail of its technique – which is useless for getting at the truth.”
“Even if some analysts do wish not to manipulate their patients according to theories and pedagogic morality, but wish instead to accompany them in the discovery of their history, they are bound to fail as long as they work with the method of free association. This method, also known as a basic rule, reinforces intellectual resistance to feelings and reality; for as long as feelings can be talked about they cannot really be felt. And as long as feelings are not felt, the self-damaging blockages remain.”
“Both basic rules – the psychoanalytic setting as well as the method of free association – assume that on the one side there is a superior, informed interpreter, the analyst, and on the other the uninformed patient to whom the analyst explains his situation, his unconscious desires, thoughts and impulses. For the analyst to be able to do this, the patient must as it were uncover, betray, and expose his unconscious with the aid of free association. Thus the authoritarian structure of childhood is preserved unthinkingly in both basic rules. Parents, too, told the child from their perspective how he felt, or how he was supposed to feel, and the child believed that they knew better than he did.”
“On the basis of the pedagogic model, indissolubly coupled as it is with Freudian constructs, the student analysands learn to discuss the patient’s emotions and “to be in the know,” but never to feel anything themselves. No wonder they in turn cannot enable anyone else to feel anything. The patient senses that inability and as a rule will not dare to admit any feelings. If he does, perhaps because he has read books that for the first time opened up some access to his pain, he will quickly learn in psychoanalytic practice to bring order into his suffering, to define it with abstract words, and to manipulate it so as to ‘feel better’ again. He will sense that the interpreters of his soul feel threatened by emotions, because in their constructs they have learned only how to fend them off, and he will do anything to avoid exposing his substitute parents to this threat. He will adapt to their method of free association and talk to them about his feelings without realizing that he is letting himself in for years and years of wandering about in a maze, while in the meantime he is missing his chance of living. For his benumbed life cannot awaken until the child’s confrontation with the authors of his suffering begins; until the patient ceases to philosophize and wonder why his parents did this or that to him and instead begins, with the aid of numerous transferences, to uncover what exactly they did do; until in therapy he can finally confront his internalized parents with his suffering; until with each new pain reminding him of the old one he tries to tell himself what he is feeling and then tests the situation. Just as Daniel did. That which the unharmed child can externalize with his reference persons in reality, the once harmed adult has to try out and learn within the protective setting of therapy. How this works in each case has been made clear in Stettbacher’s description of his method.”
“ It is not possible for someone really to clarify his situation and dissolve his fears until he can feel them rather than discuss them. Only then is the veil lifted and he realizes his true need: not a tutor, not an interpreter, not a confuser; he needs space for his own growth and the company of an enlightened witness on the long journey on which he has set out.”
“Someone who has himself never learned to feel will not know that he makes it impossible for the other person, the patient to feel. It is enough, for instance, to explain to the patient the distress of his parents or of other people for all the patient’s latent reproaches to be instantly silenced. He hasn’t any, he isn’t aware of any, all he feels is pity for the authors of his distress. For it is impossible to feel the pain and at the same time understand why it was inflicted. Once simply does not feel it.”
“It took me years to get away from this “understanding” attitude. The habit, originating in psychoanalysis, of working with free associations proved to be a great obstacle in my own therapy. Time after time, free association enabled me to establish ingenious, intellectual links and thus obtain what I imagined was an overview. This helped me to evade the painful confrontation with my parents and in turn blocked all the avenues through which I might have gained some insight into the reality of my childhood. As long as I could put a name to my feelings, I retained the mastery over the child in me, and making it impossible for her to find her language, the language of hitherto unnamed sensations and feelings. The technique of the four steps helped me become aware of this blockage because I found that, significantly I tended to skip the first two steps. Finally, after a long time, I could allow the child in me to express her sensations and feelings and to take her time doing so. But she could feel only when the adult, educated part of me allowed this to happen and without interference of explanations and associations.”
“This experience helped me to discover that Freud, with his method, created a system of self-deception that functioned reliably to promote repression. Anyone who does not want to know the truth of his life will find psychoanalysis helpful. In any case he will be helped to reinforce the old resistance to the injuries suffered in childhood and never find out the truth about what happened.”
“Philosophers and other intellectuals have fashioned numerous ways of keeping pain at a distance with the aid of thoughts and of disregarding the realities of life with the aid of an ostensibly defining language. In fact, Martin Heidegger made this is goal of his philosophy. He touched on his former painful and denied experiences only with abstract thoughts that excluded any feelings of the child since the child would have recognized the self-deception. For him there was no duality of passion and thought but only passionate thought, which did not advance toward truth as a result of the thinking process but was itself the goal. It is said that, to make this clear, he once told his students, on introducing Aristotle: “Aristotle was born, worked, and died.” In other words: It is the philosopher’s work that counts not his life.”
“Until a few years ago I might have thought that Heidegger’s error could be regarded has harmless and unimportant as long as his philosophy was not used to confuse the masses. But today I am no longer sure, for recently I have received some proofs to the contrary – among other things, letters from several woman philosophers writing to tell me that, through my books, they had for the first time grasped to what extent philosophy had kept them away from the truth. Its complicated thought processes had helped them not to see that they had been abused children. In spite of the suffering that now erupted, they were glad not to have completely missed the chance to live their lives, for they were still young enough to make use of it.”
“It is possible for a child to protect himself all through life from the tragic, unbearable truth by “passionate thinking” about “the nature of truth” and, as long as his symptoms do not sound the alarm, there the matter rests. However, psychoanalysis is a system that offers the very people who have symptoms to escape from their plight. That is why such people must be told that they can expect no solution from psychoanalysis. The most they can expect is a maze of well-intended paths but with no exit into freedom. It is a prison built with theories of a man who a century ago found himself in the same quandary as most patients do today. To escape insight into martyrdom of his childhood, he fled into the garden of thought constructs, and for a while his symptoms disappeared. But they came back despite increasing efforts to keep the artificial structure from collapsing.”
“Galileo went blind after being forced by the Church to repudiate the truth against his better knowledge. Sigmund Freud forbade himself to voice the truth he had discovered about child abuse and its effects on the psyche of the adult. He betrayed his own discovery after his father’s death. When I read that he later suffered from cancer of the jaw and that after many operations he finally died of it, I have to ask myself whether his jaw was not rebelling on behalf of the truth on which he chose to turn his back. Although my question is to be regarded as a hypothesis which, in the absence of the person involved, I cannot put to the test, I have noticed that, among the innumerable analysts who are so fond of handing out interpretations to their dependent patients, not one of them, as far as I know, has yet published an interpretation of Freud’s illness. Are the disciples not permitted even to wonder why a venerated father figure contracted cancer of the jaw? May interpretations be given only to dependent persons – children and patients? Doesn’t this amount to admitting that interpretations are weapons used against the helpless but not against authority held in awe? Patients are fed all kinds of constructs by the old man and believed that this is genuine nourishment. They believe everything because they need someone who will at last listen to them. And they do not see through the abuse because someone who in childhood experienced nothing but abuse is unable later in life to see through it.”
“The man who was no longer allowed to utter the truth instead wrote volume after volume whose style was universally admired and whose contents led humanity into utter confusion. So “passionate thinking” is by no means as harmless as it appears. In my opinion, everything that suppresses the truth is destructive, even if the consequences cannot be fully realized until much later.”
“In my view, Stettbacher succeeded in finding a way to the injured child in the adult, letting that child express himself with the aid of feelings, and in conceptualizing this way of experiencing the past. This is not to say that there can be no other methods that, based on the same insight into early injuries, enable the same goal to be achieved. The efficacy of various methods will become apparent as soon as publications on the subject become available.”
“Yet one thing remains certain: Since the injured child in us can express himself only by means of physical sensations and feelings related to his traumas, it is essential that therapy secure access to these sensations and feelings and enable the person to articulate them. However, this access remains completely blocked whenever we are satisfied with intellectual speculations, as is the case in psychoanalysis. No matter how impressive and fashionable these speculations may be, they never go beyond the state of self-deception.”
“The invoking of great names such as Freud, Jung, Adler, and others as well as the application of their theories – theories that resist emotions and conceal the truth- cannot possibly help a therapist to rid a patient permanently of his neurosis. They will only produce new, emotion-resistant and ignorant “therapists” who cannot but remain ignorant as long as they cling to fictions, do not query what they once learned, are afraid of the truth, and wish to exert power.”
“The goal of therapy is to allow the once silenced child in us to speak and feel. Gradually the banishment of our knowledge is revoked, and in the course of this process, as the erstwhile torments and the still-existent prisons become evident, we also discover our history, ourself, and our buried capacity for love. A therapy of this kind can be carried out only by a therapist, female or male, who no longer keeps the child in himself and that child’s knowledge in a state of banishment or who at least is moving in that direction – because he wants at all costs to find the truth about himself.” Alice Miller.
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Production of Evil
I am thinking Alice Miller may be one of my new favorite authors on Childhood and its affects as well as understanding why parents do what they do.
Here is what she writes on the back of her book, “Banished Knowledge”
“The JUngian doctrine of the shadow, and the notion that evil is the reverse of good, are aimed at denying the reality of evil. But evil is real. It is not innate but acquired, and it is never the reverse of good but rather its destroyer…It is not true that evil, destructiveness, and perversion inevitably form part of human existence, no matter how often this is maintained. But it is true that evil is always engaged in producing more evil and, with it, an ocean of suffering for millions that is similarly avoidable. When one day the ignorance arising from childhood repression is eliminated and humanity has awakened, an end can be put to this production of evil.”
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Theories as a Protective Shield
“Theories as a Protective Shield” chapter 4, in Banished Knowledge by Alice Miller, she writes…
“The feminist movement will forfeit none of its strength if it finally admits that mothers also abuse their children. Only the truth, even the most uncomfortable, endows a movement with the strength to change society, not the denial of truth. When men abuse their women and the women put up with it, both the violence of the men and the tolerance of the women are consequences of early child abuse. Hence young children, male as well as female, can become victims of adults of either sex. When sensitive nonbrutal women (and men) are incapable of protecting their children from the brutality of their partner, one must contribute this inability to the blinding process and the intimidation experienced in their own childhood. That is the simple truth. Only when these roots of all violence are exposed is it possible to examine the phenomena without retouching or embellishing them.”
“When a female therapist has been taught that men are solely to blame for all the evil of the world, she will, of course, be able to support her female patients when they eventually discover that they have been sexually abused by their fathers, grandfathers, or brothers: Unlike the followers of the drive theory, she will not talk them out of this truth. But as long as the truth about their mother who allowed the abuse to happen, who failed to protect the child and ignored her distress, is kept out of sight, the full reality is not allowed to be either perceived or acknowledged. And as long as the child’s feelings cannot be experienced, the rage against me – a rage she can already experience – remains impotent; it can even remain coupled with the undissolved loyalty and devotion toward the father or other abusive men.”
“When mothers are defended as pathetic victims, the female patient will not discover that with a loving, protective, perceptive, and courageous mother she could never have been abused by her father or brother. A daughter who has learned from her mother that she is worth protecting will find protection among strangers too and will be able to defend herself. When she has learned what love is, she will not succumb to simulated love. But a child who was merely pushed aside and disciplined, who never experienced soothing caresses, is not aware that anything like nonexploitative caresses can exist. She has no choice but to accept any closeness she is offered rather than be destroyed. Under certain circumstances she will even accept sexual abuse for the sake of finding at least some affection rather than freezing up entirely. When, as an adult woman, she comes to realize that she was cheated out of love, she may be ashamed of her former need and hence feel guilty. She will blame herself because she dare not blame her mother, who failed to satisfy the child’s need or perhaps even condemned it.”
“Psychoanalysts protect the father and embroider the sexual abuse of the child with the Oedipus, or Electra, complex, while some feminist therapists idealize the mother, thus hindering access to the child’s first traumatic experiences with the mother. Both approaches can lead to a dead end, since the dissolving of pain and fear is not possible until the full truth of the facts can be seen and accepted.”
“But even in the absence of ideological motives, the truth can be disregarded in therapies if the patient is offered no tolls to deal with his feelings and to systematically query and test his hypotheses. Even the harshest reproaches directed at the parents won’t help the patient achieve liberation as long as the truth remains inaccessible. This will be the case if, for example, the child had a father in whose presence he could scarcely utter a word without being interrupted and barked at. This patient may for a very long time find it impossible to achieve an inner confrontation with his father and to articulate his accusations. The liberated feelings are directed first against the mother, who terrorized the child less. The reverse may also happen – that the child feared his father less than he feared his mother and that the patient first accuses his father, quite unconsciously because the earlier experiences are still inaccessible, of things he actually experienced with his mother. Thus, based on self protection and fear, a distorted picture of the past takes shape. In the course of therapy these distortions can be corrected, provided the therapy is aimed at discovering the reality. If it is, the therapists knows that the patient can accuse only the parent in who he still had a modicum of confidence and not the parent in whose presence he had been paralyzed with fear. The therapist will help him discover the truth of his history so that he doesn’t blame the wrong people but blames those who really deserve it and, moreover, only for those deeds that were actually committed. For nobody achieves freedom by blaming people who in reality never harmed him. By directing diffuse, nonspecific, and unsubstantiated accusations at surrogate persons, the patient will achieve no improvement of his condition but will often remain in a state of disastrous confusion. Liberation comes with the ability to defend oneself where it is necessary and appropriate. The more realistic a person becomes and the more he frees himself of ideological and theoretical trimmings the better he will succeed.” Alice Miller
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The territory of God, Reality.
From David Hawkins’s book “Truth vs Falsehood”
“The limitations of religion have been analyzed by historians from secular viewpoint and by theologians in their criticisms
as well as by great philosophers over the centuries. The intrinsic problems arise from the canonization of interpretations of spiritual truth that are the consequence of misunderstanding by the spiritual ego of ecclesiastics. Much is lost in translation of teachings that were not written down until centuries after they were spoken.“While the above are well-known limitations (as reflected by consciousness calibration), less attention has been paid to the relationship of the follower to the religion itself. The most obvious error is the worship of the religion instead of God (an error not made by the truly enlightened mystic). While religion provides inspiration, spiritual facts, and important information, it is only linear, time-located body of concepts and not the Reality itself. This results in the commonly observed violation of the essential truth of the religion in the name of religion itself. (e.g. Christian and Islamic Crusades, the Inquisition, putting nonbelievers to death, slaughtering innocent in the name of religion, political piracy of religion by theocratic totalitarianism, and rationalization of nonintegrity in “the name of faith,” etc)”
“In the manner of speaking, religiosity is a subtle form of idolatry that puts the Church as an institution above God. The current slaughter of the innocent in the name of Allah the All Merciful is the glaring example. A more subtle example is the exaggeration of the external trappings and the ethnic peculiarities of the primitive tribal customs that become the focus instead of the core of spiritual truth. Thus, distortions result in oppression and violation of basic religious premises.”
“The underlying defect in all the above is the downside of the ego itself, which then utilizes religion to its own ends; pride, control, gain, prestige, wealth, adoration, social image, and narcissistic gain. Religion is the means, not the end; it is the map, not the territory; it is the cover, not the book. Thus hyper religiosity itself, which appears as piety, can and does become an error as exhibited by scrupulosity. The great teachers taught the Truth about Divinity, not religion, which came centuries later. While the veneration of religion and scriptures is understandable it is their truth and God that are meant to be worshipped and sought.”
David HawkinsI found reading this very affirmative, in that my experience of religion wasn’t about the relationship with God, but rather the ‘faith’ in the religion.
I didn’t know God, until I left the religion, for religion had covered Him up, had danced a variable amount of rules and regulations, of fears and judgments that stood between me and Him.
I love that religion is the cover, not the book…the map and not the territory.
I have asked others who have left my old religion what they now have, and many will say, they took the faith. I am not sure what that means, Faith in what?
When I left my old religion, I didn’t take anything from it, for there wasn’t anything tangible to take I had a belief in the map, but not the territory.
Now I feel that I am walking around in the territory… Of God, Reality.
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What my mind can hold.
Glancing through the book “Truth vs Falsehood” by David Hawkins, I read this headline, “Cultism”…so here it is.
“Cults ensnare the unwary by their specialness and false promises. Members have ‘insider’ status and a special ‘lingo’. The group leader is charismatic, seductive, and courts the intimate, who is flattered by the attention. The leader is very ‘special’ and treated with adulation, which is quickly turned into control of members, including especially their money and sex lives, as well as lifestyles, diets, clothing, etc. Members must take allegiance and break off relationships with family or even spouses and often associations or groups.”
“The group often forms a geographic, restrictive enclave and develops a group paranoia as well as a characteristic “cult glaze” (cal. 120) as though in a hypnotic state (the effect of isolation and brainwashing). Once detected, that glaze is easily recognized (the “programmed cult look,” as one observer described it. There is a flatness and automation style to rationalization where content is like a “party line” that is parroted from having been programmed. Cults especially target celebrities and exploit them as showpieces.”
“The influence of the cult leaders is so strong that large groups of people will willingly kill not only others but also themselves (e.g. Heavens Gate, Jim Jones, Islamic terrorists, suicide bombers, Aum Shinrikyo subway gassers, Bolsheviks, Nazi party, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, White Supremacists, Ku Klux Klan, liberationists etc.”
“Another characteristic of cultism is proselytizing and insistence of following the party line of a pseudo-religious group belief system by which individuality is scorned or even threatened. Leaders are very power-oriented, and control plus paranoid egoism are dominant themes.”
“Sometimes a spiritual leader will calibrate as integrous early in their career but then will fall victim to the seduction of prestige, money, sex, or the adulation of followers. Then the original spiritual group degenerates into a cult, or a spiritual technique becomes actually trademarked and then commercialized and marketed by hired publicists. In that case, the technique calibrates above 200 but the organization itself falls below 200 and becomes primarily a marketing organization that trades on the original concept or exclusive technique. The technique is thus only taught for a price and ‘trainees’ are forbidden to reveal the secret teachings (which are usually merely a few simple phrases or sentences with a general application to ‘improve health’, “attract abundance”, “increase love life,” “be more popular”, fulfill your potential success”, “attract a mate”, etc) Some of the promoted techniques can be found in any fortune cookie, e.g. “One smile can change your life forever” (cal. 350), or “Success goes to one who is kind.” (cal. 360)
“The true value of such workshops is not the magic of the central concept or technique, but the disciplined practice of actually applying it with regularity in the daily life instead of merely quickly dismissing it as “I already know that.” The value of training workshops then lies in the learning of the value of steady application and actually putting a valuable tool into practice and steady focus, e.g., the “faithfulness” of A Course in Miracles workbook.”
“Another expression of cultism is the cultification of splinter groups from traditional religions, e.g., the far-right “fundamentalism” most prominent and visible in Islam, Christianity and ethnic variations of worldwide religions.”
David HawkinsWhile I know when you are in the midst of a cult, you can’t see the forest for the trees, but when you step out and find your own freedom to be an individual to feel the open space where the programmed mind used to be, it is mind blowing.
Most feel and think that a cult is this small hidden special group, but if you look around within many religions, you will see what they are doing to the individual, they are controlling it.
Any organization that tells you what to wear and what not to wear, what is acceptable and what is not, what you can and cannot do with your own body is a cult. Albeit a milder level for perhaps your religion hasn’t asked you to kill, yet.
In my childhood religion, there was a phrase that could erase all sins and we literally believed in its power. “Your sins are forgiven in Jesus name and blood…” By believing in this phrase, ‘there was no sin to great to forgive’. All transgressions against others was deleted.
With this phrase, many criminal behaviors are washed away without ever needing the police, the law or the court of the land.
It is insanity at its best and what happens to the victims of these crimes? Who is there to protect them, when it is know and approved to have pedophiles preying upon the children, and the only consequences are they have to ‘confess’ and be ‘forgiven’?
Where are all these sins? Do they really believe that Jesus is carrying the weight of all the tortured children? Is he indeed that forgiving to allow the children to suffer while the adults get a new cloak that is whiter than snow? Come on people wake up the sins are living in your midst, they are the abused, the confused and the broken.
There are no magic words that will take away the physical act of abuse on a child’s body nor erase the terror and the shattered trust and innocence….
The most evil words that I can now hear are “Your sins are all forgiven…” For what it means to me, is that the monster has been blessed to abuse again.
When will the people in the cult wake up and see the bleeding children? When will they understand that the words spoken are destroying the spirits/souls of the children among them?
As they sit in the pews singing “Bless be the tie that binds us…” I want them to know, they are the chorus in a ring of child abuse!
I wanted to believe that my family was an oddity that we were not the popular way within the church, yet I fear that I was the tip of the iceberg and what lies beneath is beyond what my mind can hold.
I M Perfect lady 