emotions

Cultivate Attention and Discernment (6)

Illustration of Ibn al-’Arabi | Image source: www.en.qantara.de/

“He who knows himself knows his Lord;
… indeed, He is his very identity and reality.

— Shaykh Ibn al-’Arabi


Reading time: 25-30 mins

The Qur’an

Orthodox Islam has a bad rap these days, and not without good reason. However, just as Christianity has wisdom and truth underneath all the centuries of re-writes and distortions, so too the Qur’an which buried the strains of Islamic mysticism infusing its origins before corruption set in. The Sufi tradtion and the Islamic mysticism it stands for, is very different to the Islamism and Jihadism of the kind we have witnessed in the modern age. Here too, the importance of discernment is clear.

Like the Bible that constantly warns of temptations and lies that could “deceive the very elect” the Qur’an is equally explicit in its warnings regarding dark forces of the demonic or Jinn overseen by the Shaytān or “Whisperer,” both of whom seek to imperial travellers on the “straight path” with “insinuating thoughts” or waswasa. The strengthening of spiritual perception is necessary in order to discern the true from the false and shun the crooked path. Indeed, we have seen that intelligence, as much as faith, is crucial to viewing the unseen and the signs of higher states of consciousness which might lead us to embody the presence of a Universal Intelligence or God/Allah. As the Hermetic maxim reminds us – “as above, so below”. And like the Bible, one has to sift for the gold in the Qur’an in order to see the reflected light.

Dr. Kabir Helminski‘s translations from his 2005 book The Book of Revelations: A Sourcebook of Themes from the Holy Qur’an provide an excellent summary of the qualities needed to begin seeing the unseen and its relationship to self-development and spiritual practice. The teachings encourage us to reflect and perceive the conscious creative power  that flows through Nature and the universe. By paying attention to: “…the change of the winds, and the clouds that run their appointed courses between sky and earth: these are messages indeed for people who use their intelligence.” [1]

So, rather than having our head in the clouds and seeking signs and portents of a superstitious nature, we are learning to observe life’s hidden symbols and patterns of meaning. We may then learn to recognise the patterns of creative and entropic influences which can be understood as extrapolations of truth as it applies in Nature and man. Regarding these “signs” embedded in converging and radiating “arrows of time,” we have the following injunction to remain aware that intelligent design is at work, not only in the evolution of organic life but from the influence of other dimensions of existence that interpenetrate our own. We only have to take note of this design in order to see how carefully the Earth and cosmos is a school for learning:

(more…)

Cultivate Attention and Discernment (4)

“Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy”

— Vaclav Havel


Reading time: 25 mins

Creative Vs Entropic influences *

To get the engine of discernment running we need to be aware of how certain influences lead to cultural hypnosis and consensus trance, keeping us stressed, dependent and spiritually asleep. To bypass those toxic effects which we have taken on as normal, we must seek to build a sacred space within so that we are ready and receptive to attract the more subtle influences which positively stimulate the mind toward soul growth. Of course, they are less obvious and more difficult to isolate, which is why it is most challenging to attain spiritual development in our current round of society – everything is set up so that we remain numb and compliant or angry, fearful and volatile.

All of which is good for the system, not so good for the seeker.

Searching out Creative Influences (CI) in this context, is about cognitive and psycho-spiritual adaptation to society and culture without becoming subsumed in its pathology. When we can, we minimise an otherwise probable path to psychological entropy. [1] Gathering and applying these creative influences becomes an art and science since it is concerned with how to live in harmony according to the 31 principles.

The embodiment of psycho-spiritual creativity denotes character which endures. And character is formed by differentiating the qualities of thoughts, feelings and actions. Searching and getting to know these qualities is much like panning for gold in the mud – we recognise, understand and extract the properties which heal and integrate. These are processes which are made up of objectives, which, in turn, comprises our primary aim founded on energy dispersed or knowledge shared. The union or synthesis of “little ‘I’s or ego states begin to come under the influence of the soul which begins to grow from the various stimuli. It leads us to experience lessons which might eventually lead to an authentic level of Being.

Lies and self-deception cause a reversal or mirror image of these creative processes twisting back to the opposite path. The trajectory may appear to be the same in every way, the only difference being that the adaptive unconscious remains tied to the same narrative with no real changes occurring deep within whereby all changes are merely cosmetic. When we start to perceive the specific context and relationship in which creativity, entropy and the three forces interpenetrate we begin to differentiate which energy is operational and determine whether or not we are assimilating creative or entropic influences (EI) thus Being, or Non-Being, the latter resulting in a slow attrition of the soul.

With its inception in thermodynamics and information theory, “entropy” refers to the amount of uncertainty and disorder in a system. Everything in the universe tends towards entropy. All living creatures interact with there environment and self-organise and adapt to reduce the prospect of external entropy overloading our open feedback system and changing it to a closed system. Sentient life consists of a diverse range of open systems which extract energy/information from their environment to maintain a stable state, which, although far from equilibrium, continually keep the balance of entropy displacement into the outside world so that it never overwhelms the inner state – operational to abstract, disorder to order. This spring-cleaning and stabilising of energy is called “negentropy”, the process which prevents psychic entropy overload.

(more…)

Cultivate Attention and Discernment (3)

Photo by Spencer Imbrock on Unsplash

“There is no consistent, integrated conception of the world which serves as the foundation on which our edifice of belief rests. And therefore… we are more naive than those of the Middle Ages, and more frightened, for we can be made to believe almost anything.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)


Reading time: 20-25 mins

Fear, Superstimuli, Indoctrination

Fear is a wake-up call to pay attention and see truth. But this instinct can be easily subverted to an irrational and automatic body-mind reaction for survival and self-protection against a perceived threat. The father of propaganda Edward Bernays, the Rockefeller dynasty and their social science directives; Freud and psychoanalysis; Alfred Kinsey and his sexual revolution and the ever-present mainstreaming of occult directives have flowed through the mass mind and shaped Western societies toward a highly narrow conception of reality.

Education, mainstream media, entertainment, art, fashion, advertising, marketing, public relations – even our family unit, peer groups and working life – all reflect the above directors of an Official Culture. All are defined by consumption, commodity, image, sensation and artifice. The original source of these traditions and pursuits have lost their psycho-spiritual meaning and now float in a sea of narcissistic irrelevancy.

Instead of bringing out the true meaning of human existence – to love, learn, bond, create and commune –  our current reality is a constellation of subverted constructs which are pathological due to a predominance of psychopathic and sub-deviant human beings who have taken control of societies. They have continually re-interpreted and subverted the best of human ingenuity and innovation toward their own conscienceless, machine-like perception. This continuing psycho-materialist paradigm has been translated and mediated into so-called normative social, political and cultural structures. They continue to exist purely due to a consensus trance reinforced by cultural hypnosis, of which most people are entirely unaware.


“Never have so many been manipulated so much by so few.”

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 3, p. 19


The overriding and long-term objective behind this inculcation is toward complete control of the mass mind. The Three Establishment Model via their corporate oligarchs and power-brokers are the aforementioned 4C’s alongside economic, political and sociocultural warfare using three main prongs of attack:

(more…)

Cultivate Attention and Discernment (2)

“Dark ages are times of forgetting, when the advancements of the past are underutilized. If we forget how to use our powers of deep focus, we’ll depend more on black-and-white thinking, on surface ideas, on surface relationships. That breeds a tremendous potential for tyranny and misunderstanding. The possibility of an attention-deficient future society is very sobering.”

Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age


Reading time: 10-15 mins

Cultural Hypnosis / Consensus Trance

What are we paying attention to?

21st Century culture is a pseudo or secondary reality in which we are all deeply immersed.

Although it might seem illogical, our present social and cultural constructs are birthed from a world of inductive economic and political ideas amounting to a form of hypnosis. The behavioural dynamics of this reality exist in the mass and individual mind with no proof or experience to validate it. In order to make sure that our attention never gets out of the nose-bag of fear, sex, hunger and i-phones, it is imperative that our generational rulers keep cultural hypnosis firmly in place.

According to master hypnotist Mark Anthony, this is a:  “… catch-all term that covers the mass of influence from a wide range of people, institutions and situations that each human being is affected by from the moment of conception till death within a given, definable and limited culture matrix. Less euphemistically, cultural hypnosis is aka PROGRAMMING.” [1]  Similarly, the consensus trance that eventuates, is defined as “normal” consciousness wholly adapted to current sociocultural constructs. Or as psychologist Charles T. Tart describes it: “… when you automatically think, behave, and feel “normally,” when the internal workings of your mind automatically echo most of the values and beliefs of your culture”. [2]

Cultural hypnosis leads to the induction of a consensus trance and its perceived “normality” which leads to a consensus reality. When we interface with reality through trance-like states we are not thinking for ourselves, we are not questioning that consensus – our minds are not working consciously.

We will take a generalised look at how the social dominators use various methods of cultural induction, inculcation and conditioning to induce mass hypnosis and the resulting trance in Western civillisation and in varying degrees, global populations.

Dissociation

Everyone daydreams to the point of distraction at some point during the day. Many of us experience mild dissociative episodes for much of lives and can function within the social norms of society without too many problems. Lesiure pursuits from golf to cinema allow us respite from the rigours of work and other demands on our energy so that relaxation and imagination can take over. Watching TV or sitting in front of a movie screen are good examples of temporarily suspending our relationship to consensus reality. When we relax and enter into these movie states, our conscious awareness is literally absent – we are fully running, laughing, feeling and fearing all that happens in front of us, whether we intellectualise it or not. We are hypnotised by light and sound and dissociate one part of consciousness from another. It would be a form of psychosis if certain triggers were not present. But the TV is switched off, the credits roll and the lights come up. We stretch and yawn and make our way home.

(more…)

Cultivate Detachment and Non-Identification (2)

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

“Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest places.”

— C.S. Lewis


Reading time: 15-20 mins

Inner Considering

You’re on an internal cell phone to your “Self” that never stops ringing. You pick up and you say the same thing over and over. You hang up. And then it rings again and you start over, completely forgetting your last feverish conversation. Our wires become so crisscrossed and entangled with endless contradictions and conflations that we end up trapped in our mind.

A life of endless chatter, deliberation, vascillation, questioning, doubts, ten thousand possible ‘if’s’ and ‘but’s’ fuelled by our fantasies of the future and the past. These thoughts get our brain and nervous system so habitually overheated, criss-crossing over each other with complexity, that we cannot discern or discriminate objective from subjective.

That’s an unfortunate part of being human. We all do it to different degrees – mostly as our default position. It certainly takes me back to all kinds of poor decisions which were based solely on that inner noise of fear and anxiety and not much else. We can even make ourselves believe that it’s all logical and rational rather than an internal babbling of self-protection.

All this has a name: “inner considering”, a phrase drawn from the 4th Way teachings of George I. Gurdjieff and its relationship to indentification and self-remembering.

When we fully identify with the object of our attention we immediately begin a cascade of thought loops about what might or might not be, fuelled by anticipation and inner dissatisfaction. People, in particular, form our most potent forms of identification. This is the social battlefield of unresolved childhood insecurities and misdirected sexual energies. Plagued by endless loops of inner considering we are not motivated by truth but by self-protection and inner comfort. It’s like we carry around a no-entry sign for any authentic interaction. Only those exchanges which bypass “sensitive” lanes into our heart are allowed access. And since most people are asleep to themselves, therefore inauthentic, much of what we see as social interactions are merely the exchange of inner considerations.

Fear is still pumped into society on a daily basis and has produced immense distrust and cynicism. Our infotainment mediocrity elevates artifice and images devoid of meaning which means most of us search desperately for anchors of purpose. Albeit entirely understandable, this is a fool’s game because it is driven by subjective, frustrated assumptions and all manner of negative projections – all of it largely unconscious.

The net result means no change, or change for its own sake. The loops are still there based on a refusal to take responsibility for one’s own development. A contractile denial of one’s own deformations remains in place.

(more…)

8. Cultivate Detachment and Non-Identification (1)

© Infrakshun

“We live in a society where detachment is almost essential.”

— Philip K. Dick


Reading time: 15 – 18 mins

The quote above highlights a growing shift in the consciousness of Western populations – if not the globe – namely, the detachment and separation from our political system to offer any kind of resolution to domestic and international problems. The defeat of the remain camp in the Brexit exit poll to the election of Donald Trump are both symptoms of disillusionment with establishment politics. They represent a negative detachment of progressive politics not from rejecting the conservative “other,” but from an attachment to a dream of what ought to be, thus in direct oppostion to objective reality.

As Gilad Atzmon notes in his recent book Being in Time: A Post Political Manifesto (2016):

The Post-Political condition is an era defined by a complete failure of politics (Left, Right and Centre) and ‘Grand Ideological Narratives.’ Liberal Democracy, Marxism, communism, capitalism, and free markets are all empty, hollow signifiers as far as contemporary reality is concerned.

Total detachment describes the current relationship between ‘the political’ and ‘the human.’ We Westerners are becoming keenly aware that we have been reduced to consumers. The present role of ‘the political’ is to facilitate consumption. Our elected politicians are subservient to oligarchs, major market forces, big monopolies, corporations, conglomerates, banks and some sinister lobbies.

Liberal Democracy, that unique moment of mutual exchange between humans and the political, has failed to sustain itself. [1]

In the context of politics and culture, non-identification is essential if we are to separate from belief and move toward constructive solutions. Not to play the game of identity politics is to reject the idea that just because there is disagreement with a certain ideology does not mean prejudice against a race, sexuality, gender or religion. Identitarians would have us all categorised into rigid groups of tribal affiliations according to opinions, feelings and surface image rather than the logic and plausibility of the idea itself. Since identity is enmeshed in ideology and persona, to oppose an ideologue is to launch a personal attack. A specific defence mechanism is thus created to maintain this triad.

Examples of this would be:

  • Being white and male you are privileged and inherently racist
  • If you vote for Trump you are sexist, misogynist and a white supremacist Nazi.
  • Everyone knows there is a rape culture and if you deny it you support it.
  • If you disagree with pre-school education on transgender sexuality means you are transphobic
  • Criticising Islamic extremism means you are “Islamophobic”.
  • Criticising Israel’s human rights record against Palestinians means you are anti-Semitic
  • If you stand against police brutality you support radical anarchists like antifa
  • Institutionalised racism exists and police target black people as a result.
  • All those who criticise the science of human-global warming are “climate deniers”.
  • Being pro-Brexit and skeptical of the EU means you are xenophobic and right wing

Such identitarianism is spellbound by image and feeling rather than reason an logic. There is no room for nuance or complexity. With identify politics, radical feminism and social justice groupings, group identity and its beliefs take precedence over individual belief and autonomy. Any attack against the group is an attack against personal identity, the latter of which the individual give ups to further group cohesion. The ability to discriminate and critique based on reality rather than personal sensibility is lost. As such, it is a collective defence mechanism called “splitting” which we will look at later on.

To identify with someone’s pain or difficulties is to engage empathy. But when we identify with the ideology and belief – regardless of good intentions –  we limit our ability to see outside that ideology. It is then that empathy becomes politicised and distorted toward power and projection fuelled by the momentum of the group itself.

(more…)

Choose Constructive Emotions (and don’t forget your greatest asset) (7)

© Sergey Khakimullin | Dreamstime.com

“The old saying “opposites attract” is often true. The difficulty is once they marry they drive each other crazy.”

― Dr. Steven Stephens


Reading time: 15 mins

In this final post on constructive emotions it might be useful to remind ourselves that the way we experience and process our feelings and emotions is quite different for men and women, boys and girls. When it comes to general, emotional awareness however, we all appear to have far more in common than the traits that can set us apart.

There are key differences in how we manage and react to feelings adjusted through the lens of our emotions. The way we manage them is so different in fact, that we frequently appear to be a different species to our opposite sex. (Why does he go silent? Why does she never shut up?) We need to be cognizant of these differences if we are to make headway in our relationships and our quest for a more constructive emotional life.

Needless to say, in our current climate of gender politics it’s a bit of a minefield; the mainstream media, social scientists and cultural commentators pore over the latest data and put it through the meat-grinder of ideological bias and belief. Despite this, from most people’s experiences on the ground, men and women do have different ways of coping and expressing their emotional world which is probably leaning towards a dominance of genes and biology and environment/sociocultural influences playing a part. How large a part we are not yet sure. One thing is certain, as the role of biology and epigenetics attains its rightful place as a key driver in gender differences the power of suggestion and cultural inculcation shouldn’t be underestimated.

Although we live in a culture that appears to be pushing the ideology that there are no differences and male and female is just a social construct, anyone who has had any relationships, partnerships and marriages will tell you that men and women are hardwired to process emotions in different ways. Yet, we seldom remember this dimension when in the midst of row or the inevitable misunderstandings at work. Undoubtedly cultural influences and a host of personal experiences play a big part, but these differences appear to have an even larger biological component that stretches back thousands of years to our hunter-gatherer ancestors and beyond.

Such evaluations and their conclusions don’t fit well with those invested in feminism and “gender fluid” beliefs since it dilutes the idea that it’s all about stereotypes or the “patriarchal system of oppression.” Ideologues don’t like being reminded that there are compelling arguments pointing to biology as a powerful reason for gender differences with their roots in survival and tribal cohesion. Gender does indeed matter but not to create divisions, rather to help us work together, much like the two hemispheres of the brain – If our brains were only given the chance.

(more…)

Choose Constructive Emotions (and don’t forget your greatest asset) (6)

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. It is easy to say you believe a rope is strong as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But, suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice? Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?”

—  C.S. Lewis


Reading time: 8-10 mins

The Positive thinking, LOA and YCYOR triangle is the lynchpin of the new age or Human Potential Movement, often fused with left-liberal beliefs. What happens when these ways of viewing the world are placed in an overtly spiritual context?

A constant theme that runs through many of these essay series is the idea that one’s spiritual quest is fraught with potential dangers. It’s designed that way and is not for the faint-hearted. I am one of those who has learned the hard way that self-awareness and seeking truth requires an exacting sacrifice of personal, selfish desires.

If you decide to follow a genuine spiritual path without attending to fundamental emotional issues, you will find yourself on a very hard road indeed as the signal to grow receives a response. Such a response (depending on the degree of personality deformation present) sets in motion a process whereby the person is given the tools and circumstances by which soul influence can begin to grow. That cannot be anything other than painful since, like a drug addict, you are shedding outmoded and negative behaviours which you have taken on as normal. Cold turkey isn’t just for those coming off substance abuse, it can be as harrowing to divest yourself of childhood and cultural conditioning.

The cultural inculcation to support a psychopathic worldview is disguised as benevolence or empowerment. In the final analysis however, we always have a choice to change and to seek out what is really going on behind The Wizard Of Oz’s theatrical curtain on reality. Dealing with our emotions is the first step.

If we insist in wallowing in the influences of Official Culture, whilst immersing ourselves in the theory of spiritual transformation – it won’t work, at least not in the way we might think. Information becomes knowledge by applying and testing out what we have discovered. That means we cannot be in two realities at once which means a decision will need to be made, whether we like it or not. If you are perpetually on the fence then you at a standstill or worse, one centre of gravity within your personality will be inflated whilst another will atrophy.

Much of the illness of our western culture derives from the denial of what is, and the rejection of inner knowing in favour of security, self-satisfaction and a fragile peace. It’s ultimately a denial of the Universe/God which seeks consciousness, seeded in complex sentient life i.e. humans – to become self-aware, warts and all. Once we have made a contract with Life due to our self-evident existence, part of that decision is to willingly choose to access your greatest potential by serving others, thereby serving yourself. When we do so with conviction a new dimension of possibility opens up for us – literally. Walk long enough along that road without application of those discoveries then reality will become more and more insistent that you “walk the talk” away from theory and toward actualisation of faith and purpose.

(more…)

Choose Constructive Emotions (and don’t forget your greatest asset) (5)

pixabay / infrakshun

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

— Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO)


Reading time: 20 mins

Mainstreaming Magick

It might seem a stretch to equate boiler basement magick with so much of the self-help, positive thinking cult but bear with me.

You’ve probably become accustomed to the gradual popularisation and  mainstreaming of various forms of ceremonial and sympathetic magick. There is a huge market in black magick and associated celebration of the demonic and supernatural mysteries. Wherever there is a natural curiosity about such things then you can be sure it can be milked by turning it into a commodity thereby serving a tripartite purpose of 1) Feeding the economic technosphere 2) entrainment of elite ideas 3) normalisation of their memes and concepts.

Positive thinking, much of new age philosophy, self-help coaching and business is now reaping the short-term, feel-good benefits of occult principles applied to daily life. Now, mainstreaming the Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Wicca and Witchcraft can be seen in Hollywood, television, art and entertainment in general. There is a huge information explosion purposely generated and carefully executed like a drip-feed of psychic driving.

Hey boys and girls! Werewolves or Vampires? Make your choice. Magickal formulas and invocations? Take your pick! (Just don’t think for yourselves…Conjure something that can do it for you).

If you know nothing of ritual magick, don’t worry. You’re better off. But it’s important to know that occult principles lie behind much of our institutional history and play a big part in Elite beliefs up to the present day. Which is why, in part, the marketing of magick in popular culture is so lucrative: it taps in to a human need to control in the face of uncertainty; to be part of a tribe that may have the inside scoop. It would also be foolish to say that there isn’t illuminating knowledge to be found in some forms of occult study of the dim and distant past. However, we’ll stick to the brief: how positive psychology and new age marketing is firmly selling black magick principles.

So, why is this dicing with the devil? When we attempt such magickal intrusions into the natural order with the dictum of “energy follows thought” as a purely ego-based desire for betterment, one is elevating personal fantasy over what IS. And in occult terms this becomes super-charged regardless of magickal theory suggesting otherwise. This wish to employ a framework of magickal formulas is enticing but tends to invite more chaos into one’s life, not less. Such a place may initially offer fleeting “success” much like the initial froth on a champagne glass or firework display that dies down as quickly as it begins, but it’s not a long-term solution.

If you want to align to a law that posits a type of attraction which benefits us, you have to first ask where does the focus lie? MATTER OR SPIRIT? Do I really know the difference? Ask yourself if you are channelling your desires to get something for nothing. Does it make it a short cut? And if so, are short-cuts generally useful?

There is nothing new under the sun. There are however, innumerable ways truth can be re-packaged and re-sold to humanity as innovation and relevation to keep us trapped in the same cycles of spiritual imprisonment which have remained unbroken for millennia.  If you have a hard time pondering that essential reality then you’re probably a perfect candidate for the above tripartite system of control. What the accumulated wisdom of the past has tried to tell us over and over is that the keynote of our times is deception, the likes of which traverse social, cultural, political and most certainly so-called “spiritual” precepts. Such modes of high level disinformation and distortion work in ways that can easily boggle the mind.

(more…)

Choose constructive emotions (and don’t forget your greatest asset) (2)

 

“Everything can be taken from a man but …The last of human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

— Viktor Frankel


Reading time: 10 mins

What is it you can tell yourself and that will ensure that every time you get in a negative loop you have constructive thoughts and actions which bypass that habit? Think of it as building new houses of emotion imbued with positive feelings in every wall and every beam. Make sure that you are not in an environment, relationship or work situation that continually places you in that loop. And if you are, ask yourself how much of those negative triggers are under your control to diminish? You’ll not be able change everything externally in your life but you can change how you react to these pressures and head off the kind of habitually negative thinking that harms you. Then you are laying the foundation for your life to change naturally. (Yes, really, you are). That requires faith and not a little persistence. But if you are able to cultivate feelings and emotions that work for you that’s when reality begins to change, even if it seems like a pipe dream.

I struggled with many things in my youth and beyond but passive aggression and an overly critical attitude were high up on the scale. This was due to intermittent depression rooted in a poor sense of self. It was only when I found constructive channels for release which took me away from my inner stress was I slowly able to heal. I could indeed choose positive emotions instead of wallowing in resentment and projected angst. In fact, we are choosing all the time, even if unconsciously.

Remember the two sets of thinking systems: system1 (instinctive and emotional) and system 2 thinking (logical; deliberative) and what Daniel Goleman called the “high and low roads” of emotional intelligence. We are literally a complex, tangled mass of biases and mechanical processes which make a mockery of free-will and independent thought. But we can get closer to those ideals. Our job is to ease into the marriage of the two and make them work for us. And to do that we need to be both internally considerate of our own experiences, pains and fears whilst affording the same external considerations to those with whom we live and work.

Learning to exert proper control over the wild horse emotions and chaotic feelings isn’t a bundle of fun but like unruly animals they can be gently tamed so that they begin to love their master rather than follow the bad parent of the ego who let’s them do anything at all for the next tasty treat.

A concurrent theme that appears throughout this whole blog is that we need a good social network present to keep us nourished. For example, snaps shots of positive social memories is an effective way to bring you back from the negative maelstrom. In combination with breathing this can help to re-connect with the biochemical component of that remembered reality. [1] 

(more…)

6. Choose constructive emotions (and don’t forget your greatest asset) (1)

By M.K. Styllinski

“The benefits of positive emotions don’t stop after a few minutes of good feelings subside. In fact, the biggest benefit that positive emotions provide is an enhanced ability to build skills and develop resources for use later in life.”

— Barbara Fredrickson
.

Reading time: 15 mins

Our emotions flow through everything we do and every personality type on show: from the “coldest” intellectual academic to the athlete striving to be the best. How we emote, whether we express negative or positive emotion depends how well we know ourselves and if we are prepared to find the balance between too much positivity (yes, it’s possible) and the more well-known excess of negativity.

There is no question that we can choose to have more constructive emotions whilst understanding that negative emotions are not “bad” just in need of balance so that the positive/negative polarities work as a team. It’s the distortion of our emotions which wreaks the havoc. There is nothing instrinsically wrong with us other than allowing our feelings to run wild, often to the point of pathology.

This is especially true of those suffering from trauma and/or the effects of childhood adversity as both tend to make emotions supercharged to threats via a hypersensitive parasympathetic nervous system. Pain, unconsciously expressed becomes the primary interface between reality and the self. We become a walking “pain body” geared to survival and the multitude of triggers from any real or perceived threat to our armour of “protection.” Regardless of whether we have unresolved pain and trauma to cultivate conscious awareness over our emotional mind is the key to regulating our life toward a happier and more constructive state of affairs.

I used “constructive” in the title instead of “positive” for this reason. The latter is frequently promoted whilst ignoring the benefits of regulated negative emotion. Like the word “spiritual,” positive thinking has become a loaded phrase for a number of reasons which we’ll get into later on. Suffice to say, understanding our own particular make-up of feelings and emotions and how they are channelled into every day life is crucial. Without a more harmonious interaction with situations and people with whom we interact (or more probably inter-react) imbalance can only get worse or we remain paralysed in an uncomfortable stasis.

Our emotions determine how we perceive the world, what biases and preferences are operating and what decisions and choices we make. Emotions are what make us human; they are an essential part of our nature without which we would be a robot or the iconic Vulcan Mr. Spock from the Star Trek series. But even he had cracks in his hyper-logic because he was half-human, half-Vulcan. As it stands, Mr. Spock did pretty well in navigating through the problems he and his crew encountered. He was efficient, incisive and highly adept at solving those obstacles. But he found human sensitivities beyond the rational perplexing, since overreaction and over-identification was literally alien to him. He wasn’t exactly the life and soul of a party as a result. Nonetheless, we need Mr.Spock’s laser-like logic to sit comfortably alongside a sense of humour, compassion and intuition if we are to achieve a steady balance in the face of the unknown.

So, what are emotions as opposed to feelings? Is there a difference? It would seem so.

(more…)

Practice Self-Control (2)

“Instant gratification takes too long.”

– Carrie Fisher

Reading time: 15 mins

Delaying gratification

The late Hollywood star Carrie Fisher certainly knew about instant gratification. Known for her biting wit and satirical bent the above quote was a comment on her own weaknesses but also described the nature of culture in the 21st Century. Gratification, in all its guises has proven to be the primary channel through which the human family escape reality and the darkness within.

That drive for the instant “hit” gets ever stronger the moment it is satiated. This leads to the following statistics:

    • Obesity: About 36 percent of American adults are obese — more than 1 in 3. And, globally, more than 1 in 10 humans are obese.
    • General substance abuse: Nearly 21 million Americans ages 12 and older had a substance use problem in 2015.
    • Alcohol: Excessive alcohol consumption is responsible for an average of 88,000 deaths each year.
    • Sex: The National Council on Sexual Addiction Compulsivity estimated that 6%-8% of Americans are sex addicts, which is 18 million – 24 million people.
    • Pornography: More than 80% of women who have porn addiction take it offline. Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
    • Gambling: Over 80 percent of American adults gamble on a yearly basis. [1]

The above are extremes. But for every addiction that becomes full-blown there’s another one germinating in the wings. We don’t have to be a gambler or substance abuser to know that we have a problem with controlling our desires and impulses. Often it’s a very fine line between addiction and what is considered “normal.” Equally we can be addicted to all kinds of covert negative behaviours which cry out for limitations and order. “Think before you speak” might be the most obvious and applicable to most of us. Practicing self-control means that you’re able to delay ego-gratification without going into an emotional tailspin. Do this often enough and it becomes an asset, thereby improving the quality of your life.

Stanford professor Mischel has spent his life exploring this very topic and provided some very interesting data that proves self-control is a key component of individual mastery. His psychological studies date back to the 1960s and involved children with an average age of 4 – 5 years old. Mischel and his research team published their findings in 1972 as Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in delay of gratification and it remains the most influential experiment on self-control available. These experiments were refined and improved over the decades, but the basic format remained the same. Popularly known as “The Marshmallow Test” from the book of the same name, Mischel’s discoveries and conclusions make fascinating reading, so we’ll return to some of suggestions on building self-control later on. Meantime, let’s look at what this ground-breaking experiment was about.

(more…)

1. Heal Your Past (1)

By M.K. Styllinski

“I’ve always thought that we are what we remember, and the less we
remember, the less we are.”

— Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author

—————-

“The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the
power to transform and resurrect.”

— author and creator of somatic experiencing, Peter A. Levine


Reading time: 25 mins

The above photo illustrates well the relationship to healing and the mind-body complex. We often place useless band-aids over the wall we have erected within ourselves and the promise of a more fulfilling life. Trauma, hurt and an array of psychic wounds are bricked up and plastered over so that we might pretend all is well and struggle on regardless. After all, it can be frightening to address deep-seated issues we know are holding us back. It can be even more disruptive to acknowledge we need help or that we need to go beyond just surviving. (Assuming that is, that such a wall hasn’t blocked out any awareness that there is a problem).

The triumph of the spirit over adversity resonates to everyone because we admire and relate to the person who has faced seemingly insurmountable odds and returned from the Dark Night Of the Soul to offer healing redemption for all. They become beacons of guidance that lights the way on our own path so that we may learn from and thereby transcend the trials and tribulations which emerge in our own lives. When someone is not only victorious but shows how we can be the same, they become an example.

One of the very first things we must do to obtain a more fulfilling and meaningful life is to heal the past. It is our accmululation of knowledge which allows us to “anticipate, protect and know ourselves.” [1] The will to survive and those survival mechanisms – our in-built means of protection against the threat of death – can then be placed in proper context so that they do not overwhelm us; where our views of the world are not violated through a lack of knowledge and adaptation. We can reduce the propensity for trauma in this trauma-inducing world. Without understanding this we cannot move ahead. Without seeing challenges as opportunities to grow and develop a creative complexity that enriches life. We must simplify our lives so that greater complexity can eventually arrive when we have the character to handle it. The “bliss” of chosen ignorance numbs the pain but stagnates potential.

The nature of trauma is a complex one. It is not just children who suffered from abuse or grew up in dysfunctional families that take on post-traumatic stress and the continuance of dissociation in adult life. There are many incidences in the lives of young children which induce trauma purely due to the fact that they are here, existing in this beautiful and horror-laden material world. Parents are often entirely clueless that their children have even suffered trauma that has overwhelmed any capacity to cope and laid down potential problems for the future. What’s more, infants and children do not have the mental or emotional maturity to mak sense of or communicate what has happened to them. At a certain age, they must stew in the juices of trauma and survive as best they can.

Take these imaginary examples:

Jenny is four-years-old. She has had an operation the evening before to remove her tonsils and has woken up in a strange room all alone. She vaguely remembers something about an operation and her parents reassuring faces that it would all be okay. But it’s dark and an odd blue glow envelops the room. Alien noises come from the large window to her right and a low hum to her left. It smells like the bathroom, and when she’d cut her knee her mother would put a plaster on it. She is scared and her throat is very, VERY painful. Such pain is entirely new to her and she feels a rising panic. Why is she alone? Where are Mummy and Daddy? Her heart rate rises. She hears voices outside and sees a yellow-orange glow spilling through the bottom of the door. She doesn’t recognise the people. Why is he alone in a strange room? Why isn’t the light on? Shadows leap and twist and turn in the corners. Her heart beats faster still. She tries to move but she can’t. The blankets and sheets are so tight and he feels so weak. Tears begin to stream from the corner of her eyes and he starts to sweat. Maybe he was naughty too many times and didn’t pay attention to what Mummy said. Maybe they decided to leave her here? She would be a good girl in future…She would be good…If only they would come back…She tries to cry out but only soft gurgle escapes.

After twenty minutes Jenny is beside herself soaked in sweat and salty tears and the pain-killers administered by the nurse on duty have worn off. It is only when the nurse arrives to check on Jenny at the allocated time that she calls the parents in. Amidst the jolly, cheerful atmosphere of relief and the complete ignorance of this little girl’s hour and a half of emotional and physical trauma goes unrecognised. Her mother mentions that her daughter’s face and hair is damp, her eyes red and that she looks very hot. The nurse takes her temperature and finds it a little above normal. “No worries. It’s all good. I’ll top up her pain relief and she can go home before lunch.” The nurse adjusts the drip and strokes Jenny’s forehead. Her parents sit on either side of the bed holding her hands. The father stares at his daughter. “She seems very quiet. Are you sure she’s okay? Jenny? You all right sweetie? On her way out the nurse responds: “She’s bound to be a bit groggy and spaced out. She’ll be fine.” Jenny stares ahead, pale, glassy-eyed, unresponsive … and traumatised. Where once distant voices seemed reassuring they would now signify loneliness, pain and abandonment.

***

Six-year-old Jonah and his parents are visiting Auntie Janet and Uncle Bob on their dairy farm in the country. Since they live in the city this is a trip Jonah has been looking forward to. He loves the countryside and his Aunt and Uncle. He has been mucking around with his cousin Jimmy who is 12 years old – much older than him. Jonah had never felt very comfortable around Jimmy and he was always so rude to his parents. He didn’t understand why Jimmy was always so mean. Jimmy has been told by his parents to show Jonah around the farm, very much against his will. Reluctantly he takes his cousin along who follows behind struggling to keep up.

They look at the tractors and all the farm equipment and he shows Jonah the cows in the milking stands and a warehouse full of corn feed. Then Jimmy has an idea. “Want to see the hay-loft?”

“Sure!” Jonah replies, trying to appear enthusiastic and unafraid.

Jimmy takes him to an old barn and stands in front of a long ladder attached to the facing wall stretching up about 15 ft up into loft full of sweet-smelling hay. From Jonah’s perspective, the ladder might as well reach to mars.

“Get up there”. Jimmy suddenly barks.

Hmmm?

“Get up that ladder!”

“I — I can’t climb up there.”

Jimmy draws closer. “Chicken. You’re just a weak little chicken. Get up that ladder NOW! If you don’t I swear to God…” He shoves his fist in front of the little boy’s face. Jonah’s eyes widen. He is shocked at the anger from his cousin seemingly from nowhere. Why is he being like this? He hesitantly places his hands on the ladder and slowly begins to climb, his fear rising at each step. Jimmy is behind him. “Faster!” he bellows. By the time Jonah reaches half way his mouth is dry and he is shaking with fear. He has never felt this fear before, his whole body shivering like he is very, very cold. But he doesn’t want to show Jimmy he is so afraid. He can’t show his fear. When they reach the top. Jonah unbuttons his blue duffle coat and sits on a hay bale. Jimmy sits on another opposite and fixes him with a malevolent gaze. Jonah looks at the floor and tries to recover.  Jimmy produces a knife from his pocket and turns it over in his hands.

“I could kill you up here and no one would ever know.”

Jonah feels cold and stares at his cousin incredulously. Jimmy suddenly throws the knife just to one side of his leg and it sticks in the hay-bale with a “thunk”. Jonah feels the world shrinking, he can hear the blood rushing in his ears and his heart beating as if it would break through his rib-cage. Then he begins to feel nothing. He is numb, switched off and nothing matters anymore. He can hear Jimmy yabbering obscenities but he, Jonah has gone somewhere else. Soon, Jimmy forces him down the ladder again, and this time, though Jonah is afraid and he begins to sweat, something has broken inside and he doesn’t really care if he lives or dies. Jonah manages to tell his parents what happened. But it doesn’t come out right, sounding like a mischevious game. When he tells them about the knife however, their smiles disappear. They call for Jimmy but he is nowhere to be found. By the time they have reached home they have forgotten the incident. Jonah realises that his parents don’t consider it important enough to follow up, so Jonah convinces himself it didn’t mean anything. He would never mention it again. He goes to bed early that night feeling very tired and lays in a fetal position under the covers. The little boy doesn’t know that he is traumatised the effects of which will remain in his unconscious and locked into his body for decades.

***

Sarah is four-years-old and its her first time on the school mini-bus. She started kindergarten this morning and is on her way home. She has a backpack and an extra sandwich provided by her mother whom she knows that she will be there to pick her up. He mother told her it would be a very short trip and that she would have picked her up if she’d had a car but there was no other way around it. Sarah didn’t like to be away from her mother and would rather be playing with her toys in her comfy, cosy bedroom. Tears were just below the surface. She is surrounded by a lot of big, noisy school children and she is afraid. Everything is so loud! She looks out of the window and thinks about Alfie her dog and his big pink tongue. She wished he was here with her – he would make it all right. It isn’t long before the bus judders to a halt and everyone piles out in a mass of shouting, bustling bodies. Sarah remains in her seat not sure if she should follow. Her heart begins to thump and she wanders down to the driver and pulls on his sleeve.

Hey, sweet-pea, this your stop?

Sarah stares at him wide-eyed. She nods…”Mom’s coming to pick me up.”

Well, okay then, you better get out here. You don’t want to be going into town.”

She nods again, brushes the hair from her eyes and adjusts her Power Rangers backpack. Turning to the doors she gingerly clambers down the steps and onto the warm pavement. The mini-bus pulls away. The other children have departed and there is not a soul to be seen. Sarah find herself alone.

Her heart begins to thump faster and her breathes become shorter. Sarah wanders over to the bus shelter and waits. She sits on the long plastic seat her legs straight out in front of her. Her mother will be here soon and the the thought calms her down. She bobs her shiny shoes up and down as if in happy confirmation. Sarah absently looks at the occasional passer-by hoping that the person is her mom. Each time, it is a stranger and each time she is disappointed she becomes more agitated. After half an hour Sarah’s chin begins to wobble and she calls for her Mom. She breathes rapidly looking around wildly in the vain hope if spotting her mother. Everything looks so strange. She doesn’t recognise anything or anyone. She frowns and screws up her face and begins to cry punctuated by cries for Mom. After one hour Sarah is calling her mother’s name only occasionally and plaintively between wracking sobs. But still no one comes. The street is empty.

She goes and sits on the side of the pavement as the sun begins to go down in the hope that someone – anyone will take her to her home. She sees a man walk hurriedly past on the other side of the street and is trapped between desperate wish for him to help her and her equally desperate fear of a stranger. She looks at all the homes and doesn’t even consider knocking on someone’s door. Everything is alien and therefore threatening. After an hour and a half, Sarah has cried herself dry. She is fiddling with her backpack and tracing her finger around the stitching repeating the process again and again. She barely looks up when her mom arrives and gathers her up weeping with relief. Sarah has been collected at last but this little girl has transported her mind somewhere else. There are no tears and not much recognition. She is in a state of detachment and drowsy acceptance of her fate. She is traumatised. The next morning Sarah will appear much better but the trauma of that event will have etched its itself into her mind and body with repercussions for the future.

These examples illustrate how precarious and vulnerable children are to the everyday trials of life growing up. It is impossible to avoid negative events as they are simply a part of what makes us human. But what we can do is build our knowledge base so that these inevitable challenges do not define us in later life, where traumatic experiences lie undetected and unresolved, keeping us unnecessarily locked in within the confines of the traumatic memory that claimed us through no fault of our own.

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)

Fully remembering our personal history can be a painful process – almost unbearable for some. But it must be done to bring us back to ourselves. As that wise old bird Hippocrates noted: “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” Depending on the level of repression/suppression of emotions, time may heal. But trauma and adversity may just “freeze” the system in complex ways. As co-director of the The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE) Vincent Felitti MD notes: “Contrary to conventional belief, time does not heal all wounds, since humans convert traumatic emotional experiences in childhood into organic disease later in life.” [2]

Donna Jackson Nakazawa’s book Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal is an excellent place to start in discovering how to evaluate ACE and to implement the solutions provided. The studies and their questionnaire scaling shows, with surprising accuracy, that the number of Adverse Childhood Experiences an individual had, predicted the amount of medical care that person would require as an adult:

  • Individuals who had faced 4 or more categories of ACEs were twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer as individuals who hadn’t experienced childhood adversity.
  • For each ACE Score a woman had, her risk of being hospitalized with an autoimmune disease rose by 20 percent.
  • Someone with an ACE Score of 4 was 460 percent more likely to suffer from depression than someone with an ACE Score of 0.
  • An ACE Score greater than or equal to 6 shortened an individual’s lifespan by almost 20 years. [3]

So, why such dramatic results?

(more…)

Why Young Lives Are Losing Meaning and Purpose VI: The Universe Doesn’t Negotiate Or “Welcome to the Matrix”

By M.K. Styllinski

Kazuakai Tanahashi | brushmind.com

“‘Soul-making’ needs to be re-imagined and reintegrated into our societies. We need not go back to animism or alchemy to find soul-making. We can find it here, in the everyday Now. …The interior life should be recognized as an inherent human need, and it should be socially acceptable and encouraged to direct part of our gaze in its direction. After all, if the outer sun rises but the inner sun does not, then nothing has been gained.”

~ Kingley L. Dennis


Reading time: 20-25 mins

This exploration of happiness seems to have morphed into that which underlies the seeking, namely what it really means to change ourselves and if there is something deeper to access. Change is about leaping into the unknown and battling with the dark recesses of our unconscious mind which have so far evaded detection yet continue to sabotage the promise of a life of meaning and purpose. Even if we have attained a semblance of peace and success in this world, depression and inner dissatisfaction continue to arise. This suggests something much deeper is going on and that exhortations to find happiness will only paper over the ever-widening cracks in our psyches.

Regardless of your beliefs discovering meaning and purpose is a spiritual quest. By “spiritual” I mean the will to obtain balance and creative flow with life, living in the Tao, or honouring the Divine in our thoughts and actions. The eventual result is more harmonious relationships and a constructive daily life. We create something unique in that exchange because we have made the effort to achieve it – it is our contribution borne from an accumulation of experience; a struggle that eventually bears fruit and from which everyone can be nourished. Happiness results, as a byproduct of observable results, namely, the effects we have on others. When that begins to occur, our state of Being radiates and effects whatever social unit we find ourselves embedded. But we have to cultivate resilience from a centre of calm within to let such dividends arrive. This process comes from simple understandings and life lessons which haven’t really changed much for thousands of years.

If you are skeptical that one person can change the world then we’d be in agreement. But one person who changes their inner world positively must logically cause ripples of change in the outer reality. We are wired to cooperate and to adapt to tumultuous circumstances. If your intent and consequent effort remains consistent you’ll connect with others doing the same. Being alone in daily life is not a good survival tactic as our ancient ancestors realised. This is the nature of real-life social networks: a contagion for good or for ill can spread in a non-linear bursts of transference, given enough key connectors. So, there is no reason we can’t transform ourselves, and by extension, our family life, the neighbourhood and local community, if we form or tap into the right kind of networks. As discussed throughout this series, applied knowledge/spirituality should be useful – useful to our own aims and to those of others, otherwise, what’s the point? As author Kurt Vonnegut, reminded us: “Find a way to be useful; if you aren’t useful you are useless.”

That doesn’t mean we seek global transformation because that very desire tends to run up against hubris and the consequent road blocks of ideology. Reality simply isn’t designed to be second guessed in that way. But we can start small and build seed-visions of quality that have tangible results in our lives. These seeds of change determine the quality of all that follows and sends a signal to the information field that we choose to join and augment the creative dynamics of reality, rather than enforcing our visions onto people and situations which, though well-intentioned, often add to the chaos commensurate with the law of unintended consequences. (Good intentions divorced from self-awareness and critical thinking – but satisfying for the emotions – always makes things worse).

The will to change from what is clearly not working to other more harmonious possibilities may not lead to spectacular revolutionary fireworks but then, constructive change seldom manifests this way. Usually, in terms of inner work, it’s just hard drudgery and a battle we must do alone even when surrounded by intense social interaction. (No one knows our weaknesses quite like we do). In the beginning, depending on the level of transformation you seek, sticking with it will eventually cause minor to major changes to your environment and the people with whom you associate some way down the line. In the short-term, you might have little to show for it, but when you keep going, step by step, day after day, month after month with incremental victories you suddenly realise that you are positively different and your life signals that change.

(more…)

The Sex Establishment III: The Kinsey Legacy

“The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.”

– Alfred C. Kinsey


As the US government gives Viagra to paedophiles and Europe offers Prozac to children, we could be forgiven for thinking that the world is indulging some very dark humour. Bizarre contradictions and paramoralistic laws are in place to facilitate such oddities. [1] Meantime, utter confusion of identity and sexual orientation is being normalised with the fostering of sexual expression that is nothing short of perverse; where pain, suffering and degradation are just “normal” indicators of a “liberal” society finding itself at last. Something is being found all right, but it doesn’t seem to be along the path to a more creative society.

Psychiatry that twists the nature of paedophilia and child molestation to pander for narcissistic desires seems to have partially taken root from the research of Dr. Alfred Kinsey. He and his co-researchers shaped our perceptions of sex and sexual habits and eventually inaugurated the “sexual revolution” and the age of “free love.” Under ponerological influences however, this could never end well. The time was certainly ripe to explore Western sexuality but it seems, once again, this need for awareness and healthy exploration was hijacked.

This culminated in Kinsey’s highly influential book: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male published in 1948 where 200,000 copies of the book were sold within the first two months of its publication. It was followed by his 1953 companion volume Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, which was seen as pioneering by most in the scientific Establishment, proof of which was sealed when Kinsey appeared on the cover of Establishment mouth-piece Time magazine in the same year.

To some he is one of the great minds in the science of sexuality. To others, he is merely one of many sexual psychopaths given the task of ensuring that our sexuality remains irrevocably distorted.

Kinsey-Time-1953-08-24

Alfred Kinsey on the cover of Establishment rag ‘TIME’ in 1953

The UK’s Channel Four television programme Secret History: Kinsey’s Paedophiles, first broadcast in October 1998, revealed some interesting facts about Kinsey’s research where the so called “normal sexuality” of test subjects was displaced in favour of an inordinately high number of persons imprisoned for criminal sexual deviancy. Interviews took place with prostitutes, child molesters, rapists and an assortment of petty criminals and the collected information entered into a database as normal examples of the population. There were suspiciously high levels of homosexuality and bestiality. Under the new spirit of “scientific” sexual emancipation however, this wasn’t deemed so…sexy.  Moreover, his research department staffed by young males and females were expected to reveal their sexual histories and participate in explicit sex movies that were shot in Kinsey’s attic … All for research purposes, of course. In summary, the scientific methodology of data collection, statistical analysis and the results that followed were all deeply flawed. [2]

What was perhaps most controversial were the methods by which Alfred Kinsey obtained child orgasms. He stated confidently: “We have now reported observation on such specifically sexual activities as erection, pelvic thrusts, and several other characteristics of true orgasm in a list of 317 pre-adolescent boys ranging between infants of five months and adolescence in age.”

Come again? Did anyone at all consider this a red flag? Apparently not.

table34Table 34 from ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male’

This included the use of stop watches and “stimulation” of children’s genitals in order to time the duration of response leading to orgasm. His claims that infants “measured in the nursery with special instruments, were found to experience orgasms at the age of four or five months” and that “[o]ne preadolescent child had 26 orgasms in 24 hours,” apparently never caused researchers concern as to how he gathered this data. Indeed, Kinsey’s obsessions with infant and child reactions to stimulation was due to his own paedophilic tendencies.John Bancroft, M.D., emeritus director of the Kinsey Institute, confirmed this preoccupation as the driving forc behind his research in his paper, “Alfred Kinsey and the Politics of Sex Research” by stating that Kinsey was “particularly interested in the observation of adults who had been sexually involved with children.” [3]

What is even more worrying about the experiments, and certainly Kinsey’s own ability to interpret basic human distress is the descriptions he gives associated with infants and children during and after orgasm: “sobbing, or more violent cries, sometimes with an abundance of tears (especially among younger children) … extreme trembling, collapse, loss of color, and sometimes fainting …,” “pained or frightened” expression, and “violent attempts to avoid climax …” [4] Testament to Kinsey psychopathology or ambition (or both) despite these reactions, he concluded that children, “derive definite pleasure from the situation.”

One wonders whose perception of “pleasure” he was really talking about.

According to arch Kinsey critic Judith A. Reisman’s research: “… anywhere from 317 boy infants and 2,035 total children” were subjected to the sex experiments for the Kinsey data in Chapter 5 of the Male and Female volumes of his reports. Kinsey’s methodology could be seen as obvious forms of abuse yet this did not seem to worry academics at the Indiana University of his day, nor those who are happy to highlight what might be labelled Reisman’s religious even conservative beliefs, but do not have answers for the questions she raises. The very nature of his research that focused on detailed charts of orgasmic toddlers and infants must lead us to re-evaluate the motives of such research.

It is now common knowledge that Kinsey’s sources for this data came from none other than: “… habitual paedophiles whom Kinsey encouraged to keep careful records of their ‘contacts’ with children, even suggesting that they time the ‘orgasms’ which these children supposedly experienced. One such Kinsey correspondent was a man who claimed to have molested hundreds of children, while another was … a Nazi storm trooper who sexually exploited children in occupied Poland and was eventually accused of murdering a 10-year-old girl in post-war Germany.” [5]

To say that there there were gargantuan flies in the ointment of scientfic rigour would be an enormous understatement.

What were the real reasons that lay behind Kinsey’s sponsored obsessions and why was his own paedophilia, and sadomasochistic preferences overlooked so comprehensively?  Even before the more bizarre aspects of Kinsey’s methodology came to light, the source of his funding provides a clue.

kinseyThe original patron of the Kinsey research in 1938 was the publicly funded Indiana University. In this case, it was the National Research Council and the Rockefeller Foundation who have had a long pedigree in social engineering under the cover of philanthropy as well as Nazi business dealings and psychological experimentation via none other than Joseph Mengele (an individual we will explore further in later posts).  The Rockefeller patriarchs also pioneered the support of eugenics in Germany and America and the belief in depopulation as an answer to poverty and “bad breeding.” Marketed as a philanthropic family with its many charitable and educational organisations, its history tells a somewhat different story.  [6]  Reisman states: “…The Rockefeller Foundation’s knowledge of the research flaws [in Kinsey’s data] is certain; however, they continued to fund its use in the Model Penal Code anyway.” [7]

They did so because their objective wasn’t to improve society’s sexual habits but to impose their own agenda.

She continues:

The continuously repeated misrepresentation by Rockefeller and Indiana University that Kinsey had a “well-developed methodology” is refuted by the 1950 report from Warren Weaver, then director of the Natural Science Division of the Rockefeller Foundation.  He documented for the Foundation what would have been an insurmountable fact for honorable men: that Kinsey’s data were totally invalid statistically. However, this stubborn scientific fact did not stop the official actions of the Rockefeller Foundation. By 1950, Rockefeller was funding the American Law Institute with the mission to re-craft “fixed” American law including the state laws regarding sex offenders based upon Kinsey’s invalid research. [Emphasis mine]

Without the support of the Rockefeller foundation it is unlikely that Kinsey’s work would have been allowed to come to fruition. What is important to keep in mind is that Rockefeller and Kinsey were on the same perceptual page, a belief that went far beyond the idea of liberating humanity from sexual repression but actively encouraging sexual mores that would inevitably swing to its polar opposite. To understand this better one needs to get inside the beliefs of the Rockefellers and others of their ilk, something we’ll come back to later on in this series.

Although Judith Reisman certainly has her own religious belief, she is more than qualified both academically and from her own experiences of abuse (her daughter was abused at 13) to offer compelling evidence that Kinsey was not what he seemed. She illustrates the depth of Kinsey’s subterfuge and the historical forces behind his placement via an extensive and meticulous research into what has been called the “Kinsey model” which is now used in many institutions and law courts all over America, often by proponents and advocates of Kinsey’s findings. Mix in narcissism, misguided feminism, reflexive political correctness, erroneous psychiatric evaluation atop endemic corruption and it is difficult to see how progress can be made under the current social engineering that makes up our current system of laws.

Reisman summarized the Kinsey Model in the following list from which the Kinsey team suggested to Americans that if they follow their conclusions derived from the analysis of human sexual conduct, American society would benefit in innumerable ways.  Kinsey’s “findings” included the following, suitably buttressed by the traditions of Freudian psychoanalysis to help them along:

  • All orgasms are ‘outlets’ and equal between husband and wife, boy and dog, man and boy, girl, or baby – for there is no abnormality and no normality.
  • As the aim of coitus is orgasm, the more orgasms from any ‘outlet,’ at the earliest age – the healthier the person.
  • Early masturbation is critical for sexual, physical and emotional health.  It can never be excessive or pathological.
  • Sexual taboos and sex laws are routinely broken, thus all such taboos and sex laws should be eliminated, including that of rape and child rape, unless serious ‘force’ is used and serious harm is proven.
  • Since sex is, can, and should be commonly shared with anyone and anything, jealousy is passé.
  • All sexual experimentation before marriage will increase the likelihood of a successful long-term marriage and venereal disease and other socio-sexual maladies will be reduced dramatically.
  • Human beings are naturally bisexuals Religious bigotry and prejudice forces people into chastity, heterosexuality and monogamy.
  • Children are sexual and potentially orgasmic from birth (‘womb to tomb’); are unharmed by incest, adult/child sex, and often benefit thereby.
  • There is no medical or other reason for adult-child sex or incest to be forbidden.
  • All forms of sodomy are natural and healthy.
  • Homosexuals represent ten to thirty-seven percent of the population or more. (Kinsey’s findings were always very fluid on this point.) Some educators have interpreted his findings by saying that only four to six percent of the population are exclusively heterosexual so the ‘heterosexual’ bias in the US should be eliminated. [8]

Reisman provides evidence that these “findings” and the 1948 Kinsey model as a whole, were swiftly incorporated into the educational establishment, including the health and social services, the military and most commonly from a Kinseyian “variant” sex model that draws heavily on the above. It is not difficult to see how these models have contributed to the effects we now see in our societies.

The net psychological fallout from this was not merely the hope of releasing sexual hang ups and “blockages” that might be interfering with one’s sexual identity or the ability to lead fulfilling lives. No one would say that this could not be viewed as positive. But what the Kinsey report actually served to do was to create a climate that was sourced not only from faulty data but to inculcate a preference for the pathological.

kinsey505x476

Alfred C. Kinsey

Inhibition and experimentation with a loving partner was one thing, but if you didn’t feel like indulging in sado-masochism, husband/wife-swapping, pederasty, fetishism, gay sex and orgies then of course there was clearly something wrong with your newly liberated self. After all, half of America was at it, shouldn’t you be too? The man and woman in a loving heterosexual relationship were wondering whether such normality was actually pedestrian.

Perhaps the standard sexual expression of the male-female and loving intimacy was passé?

Following the publishing of the Kinsey reports came in a veritable flood of old and new literature to imbibe the sexual revolution with suitable largesse – or guilty perversity, depending on your focus. As we have seen, the psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley goes into a lengthy discussion in Caricature of Love on the nature of the intelligentsia’s art –  including literature – which had a profound effect on the sexual consciousness of pre and post-war America and Europe. He included examples from Baudelaire, Huysmans, Strindberg, Whitman, Wilde, Swinburne, de Sade, Swift, Gide, and others, finding a remarkable common theme of antipathy towards women at best, and downright loathing and derision at worst. In fact, all authors exhibited pathologies of the perverse and delighted in an overt or passive aggressive narrative toward the feminine, the advocacy of sexual deviancy in general and the denigrating of normal sexual relations between a man and a woman.  (We might say that “normal” here, is where an affectionate and/or loving relationship exists with some form of commitment to each other. Mechanical sex as an end in itself is not the primary motivator).

Again, this is not about prudish aversion to different forms of sexual expression but the intent behind the sexual revolution that was set in motion.

Cleckley cited a number of books that took hold of the public’s newly acquired curiosities immediately after the bombshell of Kinsey’s findings. One of these books he listed was The Ethics of Sexual Acts (1934) by Kinsey’s friend author and occultist Rene Guyon and very pertinent to the mind-set under discussion. In the introduction to the book a doctor breathlessly presents the man as a sex philosopher and an expert in matters of passion, eroticism and sexual freedom serving as a welcome antidote to the anti-sexual puritanism. For this gentleman, the “science” of the Kinsey reports confirmed the doctor’s view that Guyon was a sexual visionary of the highest order.

For instance, he writes:

“… it is amazing how frequently Kinsey’s cold objective figures bear witness to the truth of Guyon’s assertions and tend to support his ideas, which at times may seem extreme.”

The same physician informs us:

“…that Neither Guyon nor Kinsey can find justification for the terms “normality” or “abnormality” in the sexual life of man.”

He also warns us:

Both Guyon’s and Kinsey’s books are high explosives. They are likely to blow sky-high many of our most sacred notions. What arguments can the anti-sexualists and professional moral-izers—forever on the warpath against men like Guyon—advance against Kinsey’s figures and charts? …

Faced by Guyon’s disconcerting candor (and also by Kinsey’s unimpeachable figures) even the liberal-minded scientist, believing himself quite free of prejudices, may suddenly discover that he too has retained childhood inhibitions and that his reasoning is impaired by some deeply embedded, ecclesiastical taboos and subconscious repressions. [9]

Rene GUYONCleckly reminds us that this individual was clearly elated with the antidote to all that repression that he believed Guyon and Kinsey were offering, as whole generations were. In part, of course, this was true. In the introduction refers to Kinsey as standing: “… closely behind Guyon, ready to back up this early crusader with science,” which is false. What this really meant was an exclusively mechanistic, Darwinian and Freudian theory of sexuality, heavily influenced by sex magick and paedophilia.

What the Kinsey report sowed in the mass consciousness and sexual identity was more than just the permission to indulge in sexual acts that could become as extreme as one liked. It was more than seeing the instincts as caged tigers to be let loose in pretty much in any way that men and women felt inclined, to be exacted on anyone who fitted the bill of one’s sexual desires, it was the imposition of a perception of sexuality as a mechanistic function devoid of higher possibilities and thus an open door to pathology. Now, the only limits on the proffered banquet of sexual acts is the landscape of our imagination overflowing with instinctual hunger and valueless desire but isolated from any hope of true intimacy.

Cleckley continues:

“By this theory the author repeatedly ‘proves’ that any and all means by which ejaculation can be attained are equally ‘natural’ ‘A sexual object,’ he announces, ‘is not essential or indispensable for the full satisfaction of the sexual sense. For this purpose, any one mechanical process may be as good as any other, whether this process involves the use of an object or not.’ […]

This being so, if the anal, oral and sexual mucous membranes are all equally suited to play their part in the mechanical process, they are all of equal value, and it is no more necessary to delimit these specific zones than to compare their relative efficacy …

In reality, all this amounts to nothing more than that the anal and oral zones behave like the genital zone …This behavior derives its value from the fact that the cavities in question have all more or less the same form; but we know very well that in onanism the prehensile members [hands] show themselves quite capable of creating an artificial cavity which serves the same mechanical purpose.” [10]

Cleckley highlights the theme of this “mechanistic theory of sexuality,” revealing that just as Kinsey believes “The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform” so Guyon attempts to prove the same, where exhibitionism, incest, paedophilia, pederasty, necrophilia, and coprophilia “are healthy and equally satisfactory expressions of biologic impulse, entirely normal and commendable.” [11] 

If the object of desire is a sentient being with consciousness rather than just a screw in a machine; (no pun intended) – a set of orifices that must be penetrated – then there is always a chance for the connection to responsibility, values, ethics, empathy, and the deeper potential of love to come into play. But this is not the case. In normalising the pathology listed above it places the mechanical, chemical dominator of instinct squarely in the human consciousness as the destroyer of principles and limits. Narcissistic sex for sex’s sake is to be not only natural, but hip and cool; the forerunner of “free love” and a free society. Is that really what the new flares of psychedelic and sexual freedom were about? Was it free love – or just a free for all? Healing our sexual selves by releasing repression in the Freudian tradition seems to have spilled over into something entirely different.

Guyon, after encouraging the enlisting of prostitutes to pad out the numbers for a good old fashioned orgies states: “It goes without saying also that its justifiability is never called into question by those who have rebelled against repression and have deliberately rejected it from their system of sexual ethics.” In other words, the system sexual ethics actually involves the absence of any ethics at all. Anything goes and you need not be concerned about consequences or the deeper substratum of the human being. Which goes surprisingly close to the idea of “Do what thou wilt,” the maxim of which forms the lynchpin of a particular Satanic occult practice we will look at presently.

tumblr_n7qhr6Ulo71sfie3io1_1280

The Freudian, Kinsey-Guyon view of sexuality

tumblr_nhrpkdBfkR1sfie3io1_1280(public domain: New Old Stock)

Those who see such free-spirited emancipation as something other than freedom of the body and mind are accused of prejudice, anti-sexuality and retrogression. While the prudish and puritanical are also part of the problem, the issue here is of psycho-subversion by pathological constructs paraded as sexual emancipation. Or, as Cleckley explains, Guyon sees: “…The psychology of these extraordinary acts [which] can be explained as a simple manifestation of preference, and cannot be looked upon as “morbid,” since it has a perfectly natural source…” where: “… all methods are equally normal.”

Now place this worldview in the context of how one views women as literal objects to penetrate and domesticate and man as nothing more than alpha-pistons re-fuelling their engines of desire to conquer and consume. What this perception increases is the idea of a world of consumption, without sexual limits, sex for its own sake and the erosion of values that surround the hope of loving, more cohesive and strengthened relations. Moral distinctions and thus values between communities and society play no part where sensation and the orgasm is the defining factor of liberation. It is a road map for a psychopath’s view of sex, as Cleckley reiterates:

Every mechanical means of producing sexual pleasure is normal and legitimate; there is no room for moral distinctions between the various available methods; all are equally justifiable and equally suited to their particular ends…The personal characteristics of the sexual partner have nothing to do with the physiological manifestations of sexual pleasure itself; the importance attributed to these characteristics is a matter of convention…. […] …the ‘sexual pervert’ has no real existence, nor any proper place in the nomenclature of disease . . . these are not pathological cases; they are, on the contrary, people who have remained in much closer touch with nature, truth and health than those who, willing or otherwise, have succumbed to repression. [12]

These books and others like them, set out to explore sexuality not always in favour of true freedom but to redefine sexual taste and change the normal person’s incentive which is naturally lacking towards what can be safely defined as pathology. Such strains of literary psychopathy infiltrating and warping cultural mores is defined by Łobaczewski as both essential psychopathy and in the case of some of the more literary classics: “asthenic psychopathy”: “This type of person finds it easier to adjust to social life. The lesser cases in particular adapt to the demands of the society of normal people, taking advantage of its understanding for the arts and other areas with similar traditions. Their literary creativity is often disturbing if conceived in ideational categories alone; they insinuate to their readers that their world of concepts and experiences is self- evident; also it contains characteristic deformities.” [13]

Thus, as part of a larger method of social engineering by psychopathological influences, this helps to contour such “tastes” towards their singular preferences – starting in childhood.

We are now in the early part of the 21st century, where we will be able to gauge how successful this direction has been.

 


Notes

[1] ‘US government gives free Viagra to paedophiles’ Times Online, By James Bone, May 23, 2005.
[2] Methods, Sex and Madness by Julia O’Connell Davidson and Derek Layder. Published by Routledge 1994, this edition 2001. ISBN 0415-09764-9.  See Chapter 4 The Survey Method p.83.
[3] Bancroft, J. (2004). Alfred C. Kinsey and the Politics of Sex Research. Annual Review of Sex Research, 15, 1-39.
[4]Kinsey, A. (1998). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
[5] ‘Kinsey’s Crimes Against Children’ By Robert Stacy McCain, Washington Post, May 1999.
[6] For further reading on the Rockfeller dynasty’s relationship to Nazi eugenics and research in psychology read: ‘Rockefeller, Nazis, The UN, & Genocide’ by Anton Chaitkin educate-yourself.org and Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust by Edwin Black. Published by Dialog Press; First Edition edition, 2009. ISBN-10: 0914153099 / War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race by Edwin Black Published by Dialog Press, 2008. ISBN-10: 0914153056.
[7] p. 201; Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences: The Red Queen and the Grand Scheme Third Edition, Judith A. Reisman, Published by IInst. Media Education, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0966662415
[8] Ibid. Reisman (pp. 170-171)
[9] op. cit. Cleckley (pp.182-183)
[10] Ibid. (pp.183-184)
[11] Ibid. (p.184)
[12] Ibid. (p.187)
[13] op. cit. Lobaczewski, (p.94 )