Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Leo Tolstoy, Mozart, Vincent Van Gogh, Edward Munch, Henrik Ibsen, Hans Christian Andersen, Ernest Hemingway, Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Georg Cantor, Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig Boltzmann, Martin Luther, Ludwig van Beethoven, Kurt Gödel, Michael Faraday, Alan Turing, John Keats, Princess Diana, Richard Wagner, Victor Hugo, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, J. K. Rowling, Friederich Nietzsche, Ingmar Bergman…
…were all more or less insane. Yet they contributed greatly in their fields. They ware amazing people creating some amazing results for this world. Should we seek to dampen such creative insanity? Would the world be better off if they were not insane? Should we seek to uniform or inspire diversity – even though we may not like the diversity that is catalyzed by our inspiration?
Geir Isene - uncut 
Does it seem fair to say that the answer should be contextual?
Sure – but please go ahead and specify.
The world would not be better without their craziness– but perhaps without their own suffering.
In addition to these individual’s being insane, brilliant, and game changers– they also suffered greatly.
It is interesting- I wonder- actually I know- if any of these individuals were ‘processed’ within the framework of current Scientology- they would most certainly experience a decline in their ability.
Scientology it seems is geared towards ending craziness or they put it ‘aberration’ versus suffering.
And the real sad part is the suffering increases manifold.
Great post. There 100’s of other names we could add– including LRH himself.
Yes to more craziness. No to the suffering. Great point.
When I did art for Scientology many years ago, there was an enormous amount of micromanaging and stifling of creativity. I just said, “I’ve had it!” The problem with statistic hounding is that they are based upon YESTERDAY and OLD STUFF DONE, yet they wish to REPEAT those actions. That is NOT CREATIVITY. Every artist on staff I have known no longer work for Scientology today. Small wonder. We want pioneers and all artists are of the pioneering sort. There are others who pretend to be artists and paint “tradition”. That is their choice. It allows them to brush up more skill until they are ready to make that LEAP.
I so wholeheartedly agree! May I quote you effusively?
Who say that these people are insane???
🙂 Well, there are plenty of references…
“Major Depressive Disorder” is a creation of the American Psychiatric Association and is a superficial compendium of symptoms with virtually no insight into it’s causes. Because of American psychiatry’s materialistic orientation, they are largely focused on the basis of depression as being biological, and are unable to consider mental or spiritual factors as primary causes.
Because of this self-imposed limitation I cannot consider them as “scientific”. True science is open to investigating all phenomena without excluding some theories at the outset, but that is what psychiatric researchers do – exclude some possibilities at the outset as they chase their own hobby-horse exclusively.
This supposedly “scientific” classification is based largely in, and limited by, American culture, not science.
The symptom set it is based upon could have many different causes; for example, it is evident that one common element is “rollercoastering”, so sometimes it could be the result of PTSness. However, this can also be caused by an actual physical illness, nutritional deficiency, endocrine imbalance, “held down7” in the mind, a spiritually caused “dark night of the soul” as described in older religious literature, and probably more. Trying to reduce the cause to “chemical imbalance in the brain” is absurdly reductionist and psychiatrists probably do not belong as the primary handlers of 80% of the cases of “depressive” experience.
And if a “chemical imbalance” does exist in some cases,(which has not been demonstrated),there is no proof the imbalance itself is not a symptom, rather than a cause.
That may be why different people respond to different treatments, and apparently there is no across-the-board treatment that works for everyone.
In conclusion, I’ll say what what I set out to say, which is that in no way is it to be assumed that ANY of the people who experience or have in the past experienced recurring “depression” can be pre-judged to be “crazy” or “insane”. Depressed people are usually depressed, not crazy or insane.
In the case of extreme “held down7s”, a particular depressed person may be considered “insane”, but is very unlikely to be”crazy” in any positive sense.
Good points on psychiatry.
+1
Knowledgeable and well written, Valkov.
Nice synopsis Valkov. I’ve had enough contact with depression to know that the source of it is unknown to me.
Sure but how are they judged? Are they more insane than You and I in different fields?
I do not necessarily consider myself particularly sane.
May I ask what you base that consideration on?
My interaction with other people. I am fairly well situated outside the norm 😀
Outside the norm and not being sane aren’t the same thing. I think the difference is that the first, outside the norm, can be causative and self-determined – and thus tend toward originality/creativity (causitive by definition).
The second – not being sane – means being an effect, i.e. other-determined by the bank. Originality/creativity might still be possible for an insane person, but analytical ability to carry out intentions would probably be a llimiting factor to achieving amazing greatness.
So the thing that should be encouraged is not crazy but, being outside the norm or outside the box. The opposite, excessive conformity, should be discouraged. And it seems you’ve already got the means to do this, by inference from your scale of cult think. 🙂
With this definition from Dictionary.com of “sane”:
having or showing reason, sound judgment, or good sense: sane advice.
I can see potential for greatness in defying that and instead be insane – especially with this definition:
utterly senseless: an insane plan.
But again, isn’t there a difference between actually “being crazy” and having “crazy ideas” in some particular sphere? As indicated in my last comment, I see a problem with generalizing and thus discrediting analytical ability or rationality in general.
I am really not. But I do see value in irrationality as well.
By irrationality, do you mean intuition? At the moment I can’t see any other sensible notion for “ir-rationality” as the basis of creativity.
Also, I don’t think we can say that no amazing creations have been based on rationality.
Of course not. But there are examples of creations based on crazy, thoughtless irrational dives of the deep end. Be it intuition, moments of insanity, manic spurs, depressive hours, compulsive spurs or whatever.
Got it. Of that list probably only intuition should be encouraged or fostered by society or sought by individuals. But paranormal experiences could be added alongside intuition as something to promote.
I’ve been watching a series of videos, segments of a lecture given by a physicist who has created an “unconventional” theory – what he calls his Big TOE (Theory of Everything). He calls it Big because it involves realities outside the physical universe – other spiritual and physical universes and is actually based on his own personal paranormal experiences. He is probably considered crazy by other physicists or scientists.
In video #7 here he talks about the physical universe and logic and such as being constraints on knowledge and he describes his own experiences a bit. (Btw, he also speaks about a lot of other things we’ve discussed here – including subjective reality, Oneness, etc.)
I will attest. Geir Isene is bat shit crazy. Maybe why we get along so well? 🙂
That’s a very good theory 😉
I actually do follow both your lines of ideas here. I think maybe it could from different angles.
– One is the risk-taking – some people take extreme risks because they have to or just do not care about the consequences anymore or see them differently. Maybe Geir is within here somewhere … 😀
– Another is the medical side – having a reasonably normal view of reality. This is well shown in “A beautiful mind”, eg. where this professor is having a visitor from the Swedish Royal Academy, and the prof asks a girl from his class of students : “Can you see him too ?” Seeing things that one knows are not there or hearing voices (btw, Brian Wilson from Beach Boys is another on that list) that one is quite sure are not there is for a reasonable definition of insanity.
Though, quite a lot of creativity, energy, etc. come from such people when and if they learn to channel their insanity productively.
For myself I have adopted this laying that “No, I’m not SUFFERING from madnes, I enjoy EVERY minute” … 😀 and quite seriousy I know that I’m not really THAT crazy compared to others …
Marildi; Interesting video. Especially how he brings entropy so clearly into the discussion (relating it to good & evil).
Geir: “…he brings entropy so clearly into the discussion (relating it to good & evil).”
I get that in his TOE, entropy is a key principle – and in fact what makes the world go round! Love is defined as “the fundamental expression of low-entropy consciousness.” Nice and neat, huh?
Your pointing up of entropy got me thinking – like good and evil, that might be the yardstick for sane and insane. Specifically – does a crazy-creative idea bring about order or disorder overall…
Glad you found the video interesting. I posted this one of the 8 (in the series of 18) that I’ve watched because in it he talks a bit about his “crazy” ideas concerning other realities – not so much a theory as a viewpoint/understanding based on the paranormal experiences he’s had (obviously – outside “the norm”). I expect that in the later videos he’ll talk more about those. But I like his whole TOE from what I got so far, including his reasoning for the existence of free will. And based on many of your comments and your “On Will” article, I think you would like this TOE also. Hope you check out the other videos too. 🙂
“Though, quite a lot of creativity, energy, etc. come from such people when and if they learn to channel their insanity productively.”
Tor, I’m not sure whether it is fact or myth that crazy people are the most creative ones. Literally – I just don’t know. But I wonder if those who are highly creative although crazy simply stand out far more because such a thing seems to people to be counter-intuitive. And also, when it seems they are “channeling their insanity productively” it may be more a matter of managing to keep it out of the way.
But I’m glad you’re enjoying and not suffering.
😀
“The norm” is a game, nothing else. It is the opposite of individuality.
What a fresh comment! That made me laugh. 🙂
You wrote:
It is interesting- I wonder- actually I know- if any of these individuals were ‘processed’ within the framework of current Scientology- they would most certainly experience a decline in their ability.
From my experience as an auditor I do wholeheartedly NOT agree with you. I have seen very crazy people increase their abilities when they got auditing. Gain new abilities and also loose a lot of their craziness…
I do also not agree that the craziness is what creates their insight and very highly thought of products. They are created out of the sanity these people do also posess.
Or maybe you give these words other value than I do. What is to you craziness? Sanity? Ability to produce new valuable final theories or products??
Per
“I do also not agree that the craziness is what creates their insight and very highly thought of products. They are created out of the sanity these people do also posess.”
How do you know that?
My current hobbyhorse is “frames of reference” also known as context. Craziness seems contextual and usually means behavior deviation beyond an acceptable limit. The limit would be determined by context. Living solo or suffering quietly with undramatized craziness would be acceptable. In a group especially when one’s contribution is necessary and where the craziness interferes with that contribution not so much.
I’m not sure where your question is going but you seem to be paving the way for a fallacy with craziness bound to creativity. None of your people examples are the same craziness as one another. Most of your examples were/are quite functional as group members. People who see inconsistencies in life suffer with those inconsistencies inwardly. When that suffering spills outwardly in the form of a dramatization, then they become noticed. If they get noticed too much it can go badly for them.
I guess I’m not ready to automatically lump creativity and craziness together. Inspiring open-mindedness for me is a better goal than diversity. People are already diverse.
Oh, neither am I. I am probing this and presenting it for discussion.
As for the people being able to function as a group member, I present you … *drumroll* … Sir Isaac Newton.
Common sense. Peoples crazinesses produce crazy things. Peoples non-crazinesses produce non-crazy things. My best example is myself.
I believe it takes a fair amount of insanity, craziness and irrationality to be able to see what others have not. And this is my personal experience.
I would take the opposite tack, and say that it takes a lot of insanity, craziness, and irrationality to be unable to see. Held down 7s.
This is not a criticism, it is an attempt to explain my frame of reference, my orientation, my context as Chris would call it.
I do understand the alternative meaning of “craziness” as creative originality. But it has been used a lot in very negative ways.
For example, when I was working in psychiatry, I had the experience of being described as “crazy” behind my back by 2 of my peers because I had displayed enthusiasm at the birth of my daughter!
Much of the culture at the hospital was tone 1.2, and there I was waxing 4.0! So I was “crazy”, and they did not mean it in any positive way! Far from it. Being around me had brought them up to 1.5 and they were out to impeach me.
So who was being insane or irrational in that situation?
I can see instances in my own life where a truly irrational decision has brought me value.
Geir, maybe you should give us an example (of yourself or anyone) of what you have in mind as an irrational decision that brought value. Make it more real for us. We may not quite get the kind of thing you mean.
I believe creating transcends rationality. In my own life, early on, there were several instances where my fear of people brought me into situations that I otherwise would not get into. I got into mathematics and the natural sciences as an escape. Not a fully rational escape. And then there is this – and I just saw this and this (haven’t read these).
Also, without irrationality any car ride would be bumpy. Because PI is irrational.
Okay, I think I get it. It’s a sort of break out of the order of things in order to expand. Makes a lot of sense – and you could even say that it’s rational in the superset or higher fram of reference but irrational in the subset. If this is right, then I think you speak sooth. 🙂
As I said, creation must transcend rationality. Because it is a creator of anything rational. And so I applaud the irrational – because of it’s breaking with the created. Not not for any negative effects that it might have but for that sole property of breakage.
The idea of “breakage” with the given order of things is an appealing one. But when you say creativity “must” transcend rationality because that is a creator of anything rational, you qualify your basic idea, don’t you? Worse than that, to me you sort of spoil it 😦 because some creations have indeed been based on magnificent rationality. And I think you agreed with that on an earlier comment.
Let’s take your beloved scientific creations – aren’t they at least MAINLY based on such rational
systems as mathematics (the irrational number notwithstanding). Practical but world-changing and strictly mechanical inventions can be based on nothing BUT rational thinking, no? Maybe the best idea is to pursue a combination, the best of both worlds.
LOL, I even think of science geeks as seeing BEAUTY in rationality – and I concur. Personally, I can see a kind of beauty and art in such mundane things as systems of organization (like your WOIM!) and in order generally. Irrationality can be exciting but so can the existence of order. And maybe there’s a fine line or an overlap between beauty/art and science – both are creative.
But I really like your basic idea that creativity can often be irrational – when it breaks with the norm and with the known. You just need to promote it better 😉 by not minimizing the value of rational too. Oh, and calling creativity “crazy” probably doesn’t do it any good either. Politically correct has its place. And, I hate to say, so does PR PR PR 🙂
But we probably do need more irrational non-conformists, so I take it back – let’s have some people leaning to one extreme (or in one direction) and maybe some to the other and some of us in between. You want to be a maverick, a romantic dreamer – I say the world is lucky. So have yourself a successful and thrilling time! 🙂
I am all for extreme 😉
I’m for a balance – breakage with the rules alongside exquisite order and brilliant rationality. You just have to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. 🙂
.
(Hey, I may have discovered a triangle! If so, it was a rational discovery. ;-))
😉
be – order
do – use reason OR look outside the box
have – a higher order
revision:
have – better/more order OR a higher order
I think you are using “irrational” to mean “unmotivated”, in the sense of “unmotivated acts”, those acts or decisions that are created by a “cause” apart from any stimulus-response system, creations that are “unconditioned”, not the result of previous events or circumstances, that are completely “out of the blue”, not based on “Now, logically it follows that I should do this or make this decision because of these factors I am aware of etc etc.”
Of course you know this is my view, that I never believed that any decision or action needs to be “rational” at all and that using “irrational” in this sense works for me. But I don’t like using it to refer to what you are talking about.
I don’t like using the term “irrational” for these other realms of existence because of the other connotations “irrational” carries.
To me. rationality or reasoning is a faculty, like many other faculties such as seeing, hearing, etc.
Existence is at bottom not rational. At it’s source, the universe and existence in it is not rational at all.
Reason is one of the faculties we use to operate in it more effectively. It is a tool like the thumb and fingers. Reason or rationality is supposed to serve us, not be a tyranny we serve. That would be an inversion. In a social context, we get along better when we can reason together, ie communicate.
Well I could ruminate about this at length, but I think you get my drift. It’s what we have talked about a lot on this blog – causes, effects, reasons, all that.
“Reason or rationality is supposed to serve us, not be a tyranny we serve.”
Great point Valkov, I guess that is Geir´s point too.
And I just had to add a word to it, couldn´t help it:
“Scientology, reason or rationality is supposed to serve us, not be a tyranny we serve.”
Now, if I remember correctly, Ron says something very similar in PDC #20.
Yes, that is my point.
Valkov: “I think you are using ‘irrational’ to mean ‘unmotivated’…”
I was thinking something similar. The fact that something is not related to or based on rationality doesn’t necessarily mean it’s irrational, i.e. it’s neither rational nor irrational.
I agree with Per. These people created amazing things DESPITE the suffering they were going through, not because of it.
Please present proof of this.
Hi Songbird
On : ” … people created amazing things DESPITE the suffering … ”
I don’t think I agree on this, take eg. Mozart and his “Requiem”. IMHO this piece in itself expresses a whole lot of rather depressive (if not suicidal) emotions.
Another example is Leonard Cohen. He’s supposed to had said once when he held a concert in psychiactric institution that ” … some of my songs have been created in the abterrom the world where you dwell ” (which I also think is a very respectful saying)
But, I see that there are also cases of the opposite. I am quite sure eg. Dostojevski struggles with his writing during his epileptic periods, and whether they generally hindrered him or inspired him later, is maybe hard to say.
I have mentioned Brian Wilson above, I believe he would have brought even more beautiful music into the world (than he already has) if he’d been able to stay sane for those 10 years that instead literally spent “inside” …
Leaving aside what “crazy” means, I wonder how the list of amazing people who are “considered” crazy compares to the list of amazing people not considered crazy. In other words, are there any stats of any kind that indicate the ratio is any different from that of the general population?
This list are of the people considered crazy by today’s standards. Most groundbreaking geniuses were considered crazy by contemporary standards – like Copernicus, Columbus, Galileo Galilei and plenty of scientists who were hunted, haunted, jailed and burned. Crazy is often considered to be outside the norm. But to move the world to new vistas demands people outside the norm – not just better or superhumans, but sometimes a batshit crazy wildass is needed.
I believe most psychiatrists would not consider these people on the list as “crazy” at all. They would describe them as “suffering from depression”. It has a different meaning, at least in the USA.
In there you have bipolars, schizophrenics and other insanities…
Outliers? Yes. They disagreed with “normal”? Yes. Did they have emotional or mental problems, significantly influenced by others opposing them and their unusual ideas? Absolutely.
But not “insane”. “Crazy” and “insane” do not mean the same thing.
If you’ve ever had a conversation with a truly insane person, you get the difference pretty quickly. They don’t get much done, including just navigating life from day to day, and certainly they are incapable of doing anything extraordinary.
Having a conversation with a “crazy” person, on the other hand can be invigorating. When a person gets too far beyond the realities of the general population, due to brilliant insight or higher intellect, that general group tends to reject that person or their ideas as “crazy”.
Most people don’t want their boats rocked, by the erratic, truly insane OR those so brilliant or able they get labeled “crazy”.
Those listed are considered to a varying degree insane by modern scientific definitions. Otherwise; of course.
Insane but not crazy comes close, but in fact in the USA “insane” is not much used either. It has become very politically incorrect to call anyone either crazy or insane, just as it is no longer appropriate to call anyone “retarded”, an “idiot”, or a “moron”, which all used to be approved modern “scientific” nomenclature just 50 years ago.
Now if you use those terms you can be sued or fired from your job! The correct terms are along the lines of “developmentally disabled”.
“Handicapped” is also out, as implying inferiority.
The use of “insane” and “crazy” has been suppressed precisely because it was felt those terms had “stigma” attached which prevented people from seeking help for whatever experience they were suffering from.
Retarded has a lot of colloquial use and is often used to express the idea of actions that are really stupid, but has been completely dropped as a meaningful scientific term. (Which it never really was anyway.)
But I forgive you for using these terms, as I don’t expect you to know all this, being from Norway and all, where y’all are probably somewhat lagging in your understanding of modern politically correct speech as advanced by the highly socially evolved Opinion Leading US of A…. 🙂
he he he he
And you know me as politically correct? 😉
Just a short reply on conformity, political correctness and censorship … 😀
I just read about Astrid Lindgren, the author of Pippi Longstocking for those who may not now, and many other children’s books …
Her books about Pippi were in France pusblished in 1951 in a strongly censored version as they were considered anarchistic and provocational …
The fully unccensored version was only published in 1995. !!!
Here in Norway though, the latest version are rewritten (into newspeech if I may say) so they no longer refer to her father as a negro-king but as a south-sea-Island-tribe-King … So yeah in Norway we also know a thing or two about political correctness … 😛
And yes, I do see the point in discussing whether using a specific word is discriminating or not, but may I ask quite seriously, how and where can one see and isolate the differences between censory, political correctness and ouright stupidity ?
What Per said!
Recall, “Correlation != causation.”
That said, there are some factors associated with ‘genius’ or great achievement that may sometimes be present to a greater extent than is usual due to some form of ‘insanity.’
Consider persistence. “Genius is 1% inspiration; 99% perspiration.” (Edison) Clinical obsession could masquerade as persistence.
The ability to think “out of the box,” necessary for certain kinds of advancement, might, when taken to an extreme, lead to delusion or disassociation or some other form of mental pathology.
The sheer belief that one can solve problems that others have found intractable, that one’s intellectual capabilities are extraordinary, that one is ‘on the right path’ and dissenters mistaken — all that is somewhere between ‘conceited’ and ‘delusional’ — unless one happens to be right. 🙂
‘Good’ therapy, of whatever nature, should increase ability, never lessen it.
G.
Hi Gary
You write : “‘Good’ therapy, of whatever nature, should increase ability, never lessen it.”
Amen !!
Tor Ivar
Geir… before this can be further discussed, you must define what in your original post was donated CRAZY, otherwise further comments do not make sense. Please.
Per
I am myself exploring that definition here in the open 😉
I could add that I see real value in irrationality:
1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.
2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.
3. not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments.
4. not endowed with the faculty of reason: irrational animals.
Anders Breivik is/was irrational/insane/abberated by my definition.
Here are some definitions of Rational:
1. Behavior guided more by conscious reasoning than by experience, and not adversely affected by emotions.
2. Thinking process that employs logical, objective, and systematic methods in reaching a conclusion or solving a problem.
3. Person who is not mentally imbalanced or under the sway of overpowering emotions, can draw logical inferences, and is capable of normal mental process of weighing pros and cons of an action, choice, or decision. Opposite of insane.
Reason is a tool, used by and for creativity.
And I would say that out of irrationality can come amazing creations and value. Of course pure shit and evil could also come forth. But I am contemplating getting off worshiping of rationality.
Consistency, reliability, consensus, conformity, responsibility, predictability, time-space CONTINU-um.
To my way of thinking, these are the words of the marching song of “normal” behavior, “natural” physical reality. The mundane. Careful, cautious, inhibited, conventional, average, common, we’ve always done it that way.
Do you march in tune, in perfect accord, in lockstep? Then you will probably be judged “sane.” You see, “everybody knows…”
Do you flirt and dance and consort with the irrational, the inuitive, the unknown, the uninhibited, the unconventional, the divine, the inspired, the delirious ecstacy of the muses? Out of step, out of time, free-falling, and out of touch with “reality.” Then you will probably be judged insane.
Two different worlds. It seems to me that breakthroughs are literally just that, breaking through the lockstep marching tune of normality to amazing vistas and pure inspiration. How depressing to have to return and explain it all to those who cannot see, to those who hear only the marching song of conformity.
Can there be a breakthrough without breaking through? And once having broken through, can one easily straddle both worlds?
Applause!
Ditto.
Yes, Maria, both worlds can be straddled. Not always easily, but it can be done, and without compromise, IMO. Most all here, who post, are straddlin’ in some way or another!
Hi John
Good point, yes, I am at least trying. (… to straddle).
One opinion that I am considering is that “social” and “emotional” intellect at times can be a severe hindrance for creativity, because of not wanting to challenge or “extend” the general viewpoint.
To the contrary, those who feel they have a need for expressing something (for whatever reason) might be seen as both “insane” because they dare to express what they do and also “dangerous” because they challenge the overall viewpoint and “consensus”.
“Can there be a breakthrough without breaking through? And once having broken through, can one easily straddle both worlds?”
Maria, I see you as doing a great job of straddling both worlds. If Tom Campbell (the video physicist) is right and the purpose of individual “consciousness entities” is spiritual growth as chips off the old block of fundamental consciousness, then you are right on purpose. Your unique and “breakthrough” contributions – here and I would bet many other places – have certainly furthered that advance for both the chips and the old block. Hugs to you. 🙂
Craziness and sanity, insanity etc. etc. can only be judged on DOINGNESS. From that follow that the ONE who is doing something different from the 99 others is the insane. Inside the insane asylum all the CRAZY inmates will all consider the sane doctor insane.. So, where does that bring us ???
I guess there are natural limits for this crazy creativeness, like those appertaining to the respect for the body and properties of our fellow men. That is why even the most crazy persons agree on common law for the society.
And then we have Scientology – an effort to remove irrationality.
Let the debate roll on that one.
Scientology, do removes irratinality, more exactly with grade 2 processes. The changes could be scientifically measured. the problem is that badly aplaiedadly aplied it can cause spiritual break down.
The whole Bridge is geared toward removal of irrationality. I wonder if that is only a Good Thing.
It is very good to REMOVE mind barriers if you are lucky enough to have a good auditor, but as regards to spiritual improvement, it is complemented with the training part of the bridge wich is full of false data used to justify the abuse of the clients. As one example there is the optimal solution formula.
I make a distinction between the auditing training, and the administrative policies /staff training. Here is a quotation from a fellow named Joe Van Staden who was present when the Sea Org was being formed in 1965 It confirms what I had already suspected:
You can find the link to his full write-up at this link:
http://aidathomas.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/birth-of-the-sea-org-%E2%80%93-the-die-is-cast/
“Confirmation of my views on SP data as a political tool came one evening while in conversation with LRH over dinner aboard the Athena. I can assure you, conversations with the old man were never boring. He told me that there were basically two types of people in organizations; the pioneering type and those who consolidate. For those in charge, there was a time and place to use the pioneers and a time and place to bring in the consolidators. As throughout the ages, when new territory needed to be opened up only the pioneers are effective, but once the land has been tamed it was necessary to bring in the consolidators. It was a case of bringing order – introducing laws and policy – setting parameters for behavior – curbing further pioneering activity within the established territory. That’s what consolidators do.
Here is an interesting thought; from the perspective of a typical pioneer; a consolidator is likely to appear suppressive and from the perspective of a dedicated consolidator the “uncontrollable” pioneer can easily be perceived as suppressive. It’s simply a matter of perspective. .
Some may prefer terms like innovative creative types and administrative management types rather than pioneers and consolidators.
Consolidation of territory gained, invariably presents a problem; what to do with the pioneers once they have done their thing. Retire them? Relocate them? Put them on ice until needed again? If you have been around Scientology organizations for some time you will have become aware of the favored method – use ethics to get those who have established the existing structure out the way. This also serves as a way of dampening their pioneering spirit until needed again – this idea doesn’t work so well in practice. There have been several occasions when, according to LRH, a particular organizational structure in Scientology passed its use by date. New structures had to be put in place, which meant the old had to be dismantled – personalities and all. More about this later.”
Later in the article he writes:
“By this time most ethics conditions had been formulated and were being implemented. But, it would be awhile yet before the mindless application of these conditions would become a dominant characteristic of many SO members. Consolidation at its worst.
Scientology (the SO in particular), being the kind of organization it was, attracted to it some strange characters with all kinds of flaws and qualities.
During the pioneering phase of the SO it was these unique personalities each with their peculiar characteristics who served as midwife and nurse to the SO. But as the child grew change became necessary – more consolidation was required.
In terms of pioneer and consolidator it is never a case of either or; in any enterprise there is always a bit of both. The real issue is one of balance. Creating a winning culture depends on the correct ratio between independent innovative and creative personnel (pioneer types) and those who keep proper records and maintain the infrastructure of an organization (consolidators).
It is my opinion that SO orientation began to tilt in favor of consolidation not long after Mission into Time and the shift really accelerated after the Corfu incident. From then on forward emphasis on total commitment to The Cause grew rapidly and individual innovation and creativity wasn’t merely discouraged it became a real no-no.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it were found that a growing imbalance in the Tech Admin ratio coincided with the rise of the consolidator (administrator).”
Good find, Maria.
Dear maria, i am a successful objective processes co-auditor and my brother Roberto sanchez nuñez was my pc as his first action before beginning in scientology, now he is grad class 5 interned in flag and purif cs ( looks like he had wins with his first auditing sessions ). I know the great value of the scientology auditing and my opinion is that auditor training needs to be preserved. As regards to staff training lrh stated that a sea org mission school graduated is in fact a thrid dynamic auditor ( i am a sea org missionaire ). My point on scientology is not to erase auditing but to erase the false philosophical assumptions that curve the good auditor intention to make the tech harmful. As this will not be reformed with the current church then it needs to be disbanded and the useful tech will be preserved in bona fidei churches of different faiths or rewriten to avoid cst copyright.
Maria, this is a really good post. My viewpoint about a balance being the optimum solution has just been consolidated. (ha ha!)
“In terms of pioneer and consolidator it is never a case of either or; in any enterprise there is always a bit of both. The real issue is one of balance. Creating a winning culture depends on the correct ratio between independent innovative and creative personnel (pioneer types) and those who keep proper records and maintain the infrastructure of an organization (consolidators).”
Yes, that was an amazing post from Joe Van Staden.
Rafael, I have also witnessed the pain and degradation of my preclears who joined the S.O. or tried to continue as Church members based on their early auditing results. Every one of them suffered from “well-intended” evaluation / invalidation that completely diverges from the intent of auditing itself, as Chris succinctly summarizes later on this blog: “Auditing removes unwanted craziness — unwanted by the pre-clear — not by the auditor. When the auditor or case supervisor makes evaluations about ‘what craziness to remove’ then enters the suppressive aspect.”
In 1965 the focus shifted from 100% support of that to demanding support and consolidation of the “cause.”
The primary tool of that shift was the ethics tech. Unlike auditing tech, ethics tech is couched in terms of enemies and attack and the selection of opponents to overwhelm and harm, often based on the individual’s choice of purposes. And the “cause” shifted from the preclears cause to the organization’s cause with dissenting preclears under the gun. It’s in the very language of the ethics tech: suppressive, trouble source, enemy, treason, liability, deliver an effective blow, decided if it should be… attacked, hindered, etc. Now add to it that the sea org is THE elite authority, the “third dynamic auditor,” the sole purveyor of proper purpose and insanity reigns supreme.
This attitude was foreshadowed in the book Science of Survival, with the scalding and derogatory evaluations of the tone levels below 2.0. Within the auditing tech itself, this was not brought forward couched in derogatories, but it rears its ugly head once again with the release of ethics tech.
It produces fear, antagonisms, opponents, withdrawal, attacks, and the myriad host of insanities that are a perfect reflection of an insane society hell-bent on war on dissenting others, on diversity, on disobedience. It is a war against the preclear himself if he does not bow to the purpose of the “cause.”
Joe Van Staden’s write-up answered a question for me – did LRH intend this, and if so why? For me, the answer is yes, he intended it as a means to consolidate, and by diverging from the original intent of auditing, he sowed the seeds of destruction. In 1966, he resigned with the die cast, relying thereafter on the S.O.’s multiple viewpoint system, which was skewed by the very tech he released.
And it all goes to hell in a hand-basket culminating in insane events where dear leader asserts that “we are going to take over the world.”
Not on my watch.
If it is delivered in the spirit in which it was first intended, it is a good thing. If it is delivered the way it has been delivered in recent decades, it can be a limiting, oppressive and bad thing. It depends totally on the intention with which it is delivered.
Removal of irrationality by enforcing uniformity is plain evil. All work based on the consideration that there is some sort of irrationality opens the door to hidden influences.
The focus should be on enhancing creativity.
+3
My point is that enforcement can never remove irrationality. It can only create greater irrationality, in the sense of creating more held down 7s.
Removal of enforcement is what is needed, because enforcement is the introduction of arbitraries, which is what leads to greater and greater irrationality.
Thus you are correct in saying that enforcing uniformity is evil.
Hi Rafael, ” The focus should be on enhancing creativity “. How this can be done without being labeled an sp against ksw # 1?.
Hi tocayo! (namesake):
No can do!
I was once a true believer of KSW, but there you have the snake eating itself by the tail.
Want to hear something funny? I was such a true and hard core believer of KSW, I practically declared myself SP and expelled myself from the church because I just couldn´t follow it, and then, when this admired sea org member came after me with irrational, robotic, and plainly stupid attacks because I was leaving staff, after fulfiling my 5 year contract,….. light began to dawn on me…
As regards Scientology as an effort to remove irrationality:
This is my own summary of how the auditing processes worked for me. I observed in the others I audited that this was also how it worked for them:
The objective processes are an effort to bring one’s attention into present time, and into communication with the now existent environment.
The grades addressed unwanted and encumbering FIXED ideas, considerations and past decisions erroneously and typically unprofitably used in the present. The result of using distorted conclusions and past fixed ideas in the present invariably resulted in difficulties in the present, clouding and distorting perception and thinking.
Dianetics (New Era Dianetics) did the same as the grades by tracing back to original times / locations of long forgotten decisions, releasing the fixed aspect of them. This type of auditing also indirectly established that there is some kind of life continuum beyond the physical body.
All the types of auditing tended to demonstrate that thought can have an impact on one’s state of mind / being / quality of life and that one can change one’s mind.
These all address UNWANTED and HIDDEN considerations / constructs / presence issues that impair one’s perception and reason. Its all an undoing of distortions that are hidden from view.
As far as I’m concerned that is its only role and action. The auditing did not close my mind to “crazy” ideas, to exploring alternate realities, to extending my perception and knowledge. It opened the box for me. And I have been having a heyday, much to the horror of those around me, who are very much boxed in.
I say this because I have repeatedly come into conflict with efforts to protect, defend and promulgate predominating belief systems / ideologies as I sought to extend my comprehension, thinking, knowledge and continue along my own path of truth and creativity.
Dear maria, it is hard not to agree on your viewpoint.
Maria, well said. Auditing removes unwanted craziness — unwanted by the pre-clear — not by the auditor.
When the auditor or case supervisor makes evaluations about “what craziness to remove” then enters the suppressive aspect.
+1
Now that evaluation happens every day – and is sanctioned by the tech itself.
Yes. The ethics tech. It could have been a useful tool, but it was written in terms of attack and overwhelm and perceived threats and harm. I saw a repetitive cycle of insanity on staff – staff screws up in some way. IMMEDIATE evaluation / invalidation – enemy, treason, suppressive, PTS, entheta, downstat, etc. Then an endless round of conditions and outright harassment based on those evaluations. It should have gone – staff screws up – proper evaluation of the situation and all adjacent / impacting situations (including batshit insane leadership,) then qual correction. No joy? qual correction. No joy? qual correction. No joy? Off to auditing. No joy? Offload from staff. No need for punishment or degradation… rather, a recognition of misaligned purpose and preservation of the integrity of the individual. But as Joe Van Staden points out, the tech-admin ratio went by the boards as early as the mid sixties and there simply were not enough auditors to do these functions.
Can you be specific, as to how that is sanctioned?
The Bridge in main is geared toward removing aberration that LRH thought you should remove and then gave authorization to the C/S’es that they made sure those aberrations were removed. I am not saying that these aberrations should not be removed – only that the ridge is in fact a pretty large evaluation.
Maria, I just had auditing tech in mind, but you are absolutely right about the ethics tech and how badly it went wrong. If only there had been the kind of handling you laid out and as needed “a recognition of misaligned purpose and preservation of the integrity of the individual” Oh wow, that is one big, broad, high viewpoint.
Geir, by “evaluation” are you referring to any of the following:
1. Telling the pc what to think about his case.(HCOB 4 Aug 60)
2. Evaluation for a person could be defined as the action of shaking his stable data without giving him further stable data with which he can agree or in which he can believe. (PAB 93)
3. the reactive mind’s conception of viewpoint. (COHA)
4. the shifting of viewpoints or the attempt to do so. (PAB 8)
The issue I see here is “evaluation” in the #1, #3, & #4 senses in particular. The contexts I don’t see being differentiated are between those definitions and the context of rational analysis based on observations of the obvious. There is a world of difference between those 2 senses of the word “evaluation”.
A question you, Geir, might be able to answer is, “At what point on your way up the Bridge, do you think/feel/perceive the emphasis shifted from being asked what you thought about your case, to being told what to think about your case?” This is assuming there was/is such a point on your Bridge progress?
I am interested because LRH said that buttons on the Grades consist of all the things that stop auditing/prevent auditing from happening. The context is of course that “auditing” refers to Communication(ARC).
So the “evaluation” that these are the things that need to be run is a rational analysis based on LRH’s obnosis of people and their cases. The definitions of “evaluation” stated above would not seem to apply to this context. Anyone can look at a Grade Chart and decide for themselves whether or not these buttons apply to their own case(“indicate”), and therefore whether they want to get auditing or not.
I don’t know anything about the Upper levels so I can’t really speak to those, but I assume it is less clear-cut as there seems to be controversy about the “OT case”.
Let’s first focus simply on #1 above.
Then most of the upper bridge is an evaluation. LRH mapped out what you need to handle and in what sequence. You cannot choose what aberrations you want to tackle. It is a rote route. And in fact the same goes for the lower bridge. You cannot shoot straight for Grade IV because you want that handled. It is a set sequence of steps. It is what you too should think about your case. And this, to me, seems to violate definition #1 an a “macro” sense.
Per Geir: “You cannot shoot straight for Grade IV because you want that handled. It is a set sequence of steps. It is what you too should think about your case. And this, to me, seems to violate definition #1 an a “macro” sense.”
So why do the lower grades at all? Why not just do the Clearing Course and go Clear first off?
Why bother with the first 3 years of college? Why not just do the Senior year and get your degree in one year instead of taking 4 years to get it?
Why bother to learn to walk before running? Or learning to boil water before cooking your first gourmet meal?
ETC.
It is possible to audit a person all the way up to Clear without training him or giving him any education whatsoever about what is happening to him. Just give him the auditing commands in the correct sequence and run them all to FN. But someone has to be continually “evaluating” in the background in order for the auditor to know what the correct command is, at any given time.
I see a confusion here, between “evaluating for the pc” in the sense of breaking the Auditor’sCode, and an auditor or C/S privately within himself making a rational evaluation of the observed behavior of the person’s case. I don’t see how any constructive action in living can be done without evaluation(in the sense of rational analytical thinking). And especially in any endeavor involving working with persons and their minds.
This is apparently another problem of language, nomenclature, and definitions of words, because I am definitely not tracking with what you are saying.
V. – “No therapist, minister, or other helping person can effectively help anyone without “evaluating” what it is he is dealing with in front of him.”
Geir – I do not believe this to be true.
Well then, how does a helping person know what to ask or say or do next, if he does not evaluate what he just saw and heard? This is true even in Idenics or Buddhism.
If I tell you “THis is your blog, Geir”, am I “evaluating” FOR you? Well, if you fell on your head with resulting amnesia, and I said that, then I might be.
I’m guessing you have not duplicated the research and training side of the Bridge. Hubbard said himself the Bridge he developed is not necessarily the only possible or the best possible route, only that it is a workable route towards OT.
The Bridge as it exists is the product of (in the1950s and 1960s) many auditors trying many processes and eventually winnowing the results down to the ones that worked most frequently on the largest number of pcs, ie not the auditors telling the pcs what to think about their cases, but the pcs telling the auditors what was working and what wasn’t. Hubbard surveyed the auditors and collated the data.
How is this any different than how Medicine works?
You come off as a bit defensive IMO.
“So why do the lower grades at all? Why not just do the Clearing Course and go Clear first off?”
This is not really relevant to the main point – because Scientology could have presented multiple paths to tackle any and all aberrations that the PC wants to handle. Like in the Universities. But Scientology is not like that. It presents in main One True path that supposedly will handle Any And All aberrations. And this is a major criticism of those who tried Scientology and left – that what They wanted handled was just around the corner – on the next level… no, on the next level… no, the next, next, next… eh… never. Witness the video from Jason Beghe. These accounts are so numerous that one cannot ignore or dismiss this issue with any credibility remained. It IS a major problem in Scientology that the person’s Main Pains are nott immediately addressed. And this is the area where the potential for improvement in Scientology is the greatest.
“Well then, how does a helping person know what to ask or say or do next, if he does not evaluate what he just saw and heard? This is true even in Idenics or Buddhism.”
The KHTK approach tackles this better.
“It IS a major problem in Scientology that the person’s Main Pains are not immediately addressed.”
Geir, my understanding is that life repair (for a new guy) or a “review” would handle things the pc needs or wants handled. But if it were an out-gradient action, in the way Valkov describes (i.e. pc not set up yet) the pc would have to be well R-factored about that as an isness. Maybe we’re not duplicating the kind of thing you have in mind. Example?
Examples: The person has a fixation on love. The person cannot talk in front of people. Arachnophobia. Fear of heights. Compulsive thoughts. Eating disorder. Etc. The person comes in with an issue. A big one. Life repair does in most cases not handle any major issues like these. The person is registered for The Bridge and told that “Scientology will handle this”. But when? The person happily moves along – but the major issue is not yet handled. Not just yet. Not even as the person has attested OT VIII. Sometimes the issue is handled along hte line – but often not. Yeees, he gets gains. Excellent gains and wins and life changing cognitions and happiness and, and, and. But, the major issue could still be there. The person blows off and complains that Scientology didn’t deliver what was promised. Because the OCA/reg script Does In Fact say “Scientology will handle that”. Bummer. The downfall of Scientology. IMNSHO.
Better a fixation on love than on Scn.
Good morning to all
I see. I have no data on such. Have you ever had a chance to ask some highly trained C/S or auditor about this? Where you say it’s the downfall of Scn it seems you feel it happens a lot and if so that really is an issue. If not, there may have been something very out.
A large percentage of people I speak to who have been in Scientology for a while have this come up in our conversation. The Road, the Bridge may not handle the person’s issue until OT 2, or OT VII or Grade 4 or perhaps never at all. There should be a technology invented that directly addresses the issue at hand – because it is “at hand” and thus confrontable by the person (witnessed by the fact that the person is confronting it in present time). I know of no such tech. Unfortunately. But for Scientology to bluntly promise that “this will be handled in Scientology” right off the bat and then tell the person to “wait a minute, hoooooold it…” and letting the person “know” it is just around the corner is bordering on fraud.
You know what I suspect, Geir? Maybe the problem with you and me is that we still want to believe that Scientology is all things to all people. Even though we’ve both said, and meant, that it isn’t…we still wish it were. But hey, “a lot of things to a lot of people” isn’t bad. I guess we should just “get off it ” ;-). (a la Alan Watts)
Geir, I meant to acknowledge your point about the utterly disappointing promises. I guess I wanted to not-is that. But it is a very valid point.
Thanks. And yes, I think it needs correction.
Chris,
Auditing, as I understand it, is designed to increase the ARC of the preclear. The Grades consist of all the factors that keep the ARC of the pc suppressed or depressed. EG, all the buttons that “prevent auditing” (“Auditing” is Communication or, in short, ARC.)
I agree, Chris, that these “unwanted” things can be be lumped into the category of “crazinesses”, (although many people might classify them as “normal” human experience).
Please see my questions to Geir about what he meant by “evaluation”. As usual in English, the word has several meanings, including Scientology’s extensive definitions of it. And as usual in English, they range from one end of a scale to the other, from the analytical to the reactive.
Which do you mean?
It is impossible to live without “evaluating” in the sense of doing rational analysis for optimum results. You do this whether you are aware of it or not. The more uptone you are, the more quickly and accurately you do it. The lower you fall, the more your “evaluation” becomes reactive, inflexible, and doctrinaire.
When you solo audit, I certainly hope you “evaluate” what is happening in your session. Surely you evaluate the session you have just given yourself, in order to C/S yourself for your next session?
Would you say that you as the auditor are “suppressing” yourself as the pre-OT?
I think not.
No therapist, minister, or other helping person can effectively help anyone without “evaluating” what it is he is dealing with in front of him. No parent can effectively raise a child without continually evaluating in order to decide what his appropriate response is in any given situation presented to him by his children.
In any communication, I think it is assumed the other person will be able to duplicate and evaluate what you say, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
“No therapist, minister, or other helping person can effectively help anyone without “evaluating” what it is he is dealing with in front of him.”
I do not believe this to be true.
What kind of evaluation do I mean? The kind of evaluation that was warned against in the Auditor’s Code. I didn’t mean the kind that you describe above or the instructional kind or the kind where I decide if the cashier gave me back the correct change.
Born out of unhappy experiences with trying to tell someone what to think about their own reality, LRH made that rule #1 of 19 in the Auditor’s Code. And really, in or out of session, when just interacting with people in general I think applying the Auditor’s Code to one’s own conduct and interaction with the environment in general sets a certain tone of respect and propriety and gives pleasing results.
On the subtler side, evaluation can be and is routinely used by mankind largely to put another at effect by pushing the buttons of their reactive mind in such a way as to gain a measure of control over that person.
If the “Auditor plus PreClear” is said to be greater than the reactive mind of the PC, then I would propose that an “ill-intentioned person plus the reactive mind of the PC” is greater than that PC and this might be the root problem with overwhelm.
“Let the debate roll on that one” Geir, you are really cute :-D. What you mean is – let the good times roll! (Although…you haven’t got much flashback so far. You must have flattened a lot of buttons on both sides of the Scn debate. And it only took us 100 posts, LOL.)
Okay, on to debate mode now. To say Scientology is an effort to remove irrationality has truth to it but I think it’s looking at it out of the larger frame of reference. Besides the way Maria beautifully described it in terms of personal experience from both sides of the meter, the general subject could be put into context with the following LRH quotes:
The Aims of Scientology: “A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology.”
Professional Auditor Bulletin 86, 29 May 1956: “The end object of Scientology is not the making into nothing of all existence or the freeing of the individual of any and all traps everywhere. The goal of Scientology is making the individual capable of living a better life in his own estimation and with his fellows and the playing of a better game.”
I see it differently. Scientology was never intended to restrict anyone. Scientology was intended as a philosophy and set of methods to help individuals remove those factors that limited them, and help them expand their abilities and creativity.
The institution of the “Church” of Scientology has turned that intention on it’s head by becoming obsessed with control.
The only “irrationality” Scientology was ever intended to remove is the irrationality of “held down 7s” which are basically obsessions and compulsions that limit a person’s behavior and prevent him/her from being more creative than he is. “Irrationality” does not = “creativity” to me. Quite the opposite.
To me, rationality vs. creativity is a false dichotomy. They are not even on the same level in the heirarchy of human beingness and activity.
For these reasons, I reject most conventional uses of “crazy” and “insane” as being nothing more than labels used for invalidating thoughts, emotions,and actions one finds unacceptable or unconfrontable. They have been way overused as labels of social control and as such have been ruined for meaningful exchange of information. They have become all things to all men.
Example: in the old Soviet Union, Cuba, et al, a politically dissident person was legally judged “crazy” or “Insane”, whereas many social deviants were given a “pass” as simply eccentric.
But in the USA, social deviant or “different ” folks were labelled crazy or insane.
Agreed.
There is meaning, knowledge, knowing, experience, reason, creativity, rationality and they are all different activities. Too much emphasis on rationality (i.e. pure logic) can act to deny the richness and reality of existence. The smell of fresh cut grass, the grace of unconditional love, the joy of living, the pathos of despair, the exhilarating surge of knowing, just knowing, these all fall outside of the rigid and antiseptic confines of heavily constrained logic and “pure” rationality.
As Donovan once said: Wear your love like heaven.
Agree Valkov. 100%
I question that Scientology can be described as “an effort to remove irrationality”, unless you define irrationality in the negative sense as I usually do when I use the word.. I see Scientology as being much more.
The purpose of auditing according to Hubbard is, “To increase the ARC of the preclear.” Period.
: ) :
._.
Marildi: Thank you so much for the video you posted! I’ve watched the whole series. Its practically a companion to the Information Philosophy site I found earlier and it also encompasses the works of Whitehead in a truly admirable way!
That’s exactly what I thought – information science and philosophy. I was so excited and impressed with it (although I”m only half way through). The fact that you are too is really gratifying! Thanks so much for letting me know. 🙂
And thanks for reminding me about the works of Whitehead. I’ll get there…
+1 !
Cool, Rafael. I feel in very good company with you and Maria both being of like mind with me in appreciating this man’s theory and worldview. 🙂
Logic is ultimately cold, boring, empty, dead.
Let’s celebrate it!
Shake shake shake,
Milky way
Can be blurry
Dusty
(De)Lightful
And so soft
(No art intended)
R, you are a great example of someone not pinned by conventional constraints. 🙂
dunno but thank you for what looks like a compliment 🙂
Yes, it was. 🙂
How about this for insane?
Spending nearly 100 years in the pursuit of things to feed, protect, and shelter things, things that never were anything but coalesced forms in flux in a closed loop system based on death. Bloody jaws and vicious attack hidden away in slaughterhouses, starvation and hate, and on every breath fear of retribution, fear of attack, fear. And the victor, standing over it all screaming – it’s mine! Bloody hell. Call it what it is.
This is “normal.” This is 10s of thousands of years of world history and as we speak the patterns are repeating and repeating and repeating… These are the “natural laws” at work. These are the consequences of refusing to look past the machinery, to look past the consistent and predictable and what has been. We need vast change in the crazy faith in the perfection of “nature” and ego-bound thinking, a release from enslavement to constrained existence.
Am I crazy?
Yes you are, super-duper crazy 🙂
Yes – VERY!
Hi Maria
Thanks for a good post. I read it some days ago but I need time to “compose” a suitable to such a post.
No, Maria, I think you are NOT crazy at all, just having a sound sense of doubt about society. I read (may wrongly) an “Is it really worth it”-question between your lines …
The survival game (“It’s mine”) is important enough in a stone-age world, but I really think we’re way beyond that now …
For me it’s about of finding balance, not “a balance” because I think the balances will be multiple, neither “the balance” because I don’t think such a balance can or will be static. Yes, balance, balance between “business” and ” pleasure” : balance between on one side :
contributing to production in general,
make a living to my make ends meet
and the other side joining in on the “rat race” …
Balance between what is necessary (according to the survival game), what is sensible over some time scale (both acc to survival and game and others things) and what I do think is worth the effort.
Tor Ivar 🙂
Seems like a balance between diversity and uniformity is needed, but with diversity being the most important. When uniformity becomes more important, decay inevitably follows.
Crazy for me has a beautiful side but doesn´t quite compute regarding amazingness.
My focus goes more to breaking with the need most people have of standing on solid ground, on logic structures, on stable data, on coherent minds, which points towards a feeling of being unable to create. A condition of being at effect regarding the MEST universe, and at the same time, not at cause over one´s own universe.
The creative push is what keeps adding life to this universe, and is the signature of amazing people.
“In there you have bipolars, schizophrenics and other insanities…”
Maybe so, but the link you posted took me to a page titled – ” List of people with major depressive disorder “, so I was commenting on that assumption.
The question remains, are any of those conditions actually “insanities”? And by whose standards?
I think most people would consider several of the people on the list as insane – by any standard.
OK, I’ll have to look at the whole list, which I haven’t done. However I cannot disagree with your statement about them, even not having seen the list
This is because my position is that any standard of “sanity” is a matter of group agreement, and that beings are fundamentally neither rational nor irrational.
So Hubbard did define a standard of rationality that is acceptable to me. Since beings are essentially ARC, I can think with the concept that the farther a being falls from ARC with the dynamics, the less “sane” he becomes. And this seems to work out in practice.
So if we are all “more or less sane/insane”, where is that line really, where we pass from one to the other? LRH defined it in terms of the Tone Scale and the relative balance of constructive/destructive.
But in order to have a game, you need destruction. So balance is needed.
Yes I agree, and that’s exactly what I said in my last paragraph above: “So if we are all “more or less sane/insane”, where is that line really, where we pass from one to the other? LRH defined it in terms of the Tone Scale and the relative balance of constructive/destructive.”
He covered it in various essays about the principle of using the minimum force/destruction necessary to accomplish a constructive goal, and that as a person falls away from rationality he may become more and more destructive. Whether he realizes it or not. He may think it is necessary to.for instance, commit genocide to solve his problem, but that probably is not really the optimum solution. LRH generally tried to apply this principle across-the-board.
Sanity/insanity is a continuum, and we all fall somewhere on it at any given time, but the group agreement we are living within determines when we are judged to cross some perhaps arbitrary line of “too much insanity. not enough sanity” and will perhaps be pressured to be “in treatment”(or burned at the stake?) for the imbalance others perceive in us.
Sanity/insanity is a social issue, but it can also be an issue within the individual, when he perceives the existence of forces within himself that seem to be detrimental to living his life the way he wants to live it and accomplish goals he wishes to accomplish.
Dear valkov, real insanity in this context, was defined by lrh as the overt or covert impulse to harm and destroy but always constant. I will complete to this definition that when a person likes this harmful actions on persons and properties of others, he is in fact insane.
Exactly, Rafael.
That person has lost his balance and fallen way over to the “destroy” end of the continuum. He is spending much more time destroying than he is building or constructing useful things.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift”. – Albert Einstein
isene
2011-11-17 at 00:41
The Bridge in main is geared toward removing aberration that LRH thought you should remove and then gave authorization to the C/S’es that they made sure those aberrations were removed. I am not saying that these aberrations should not be removed – only that the ridge is in fact a pretty large evaluation.
I had never given myself permission to think in such terms of evaluation, never had such a fuller understanding of evaluation until I began participating in this blog. My thinking has been stretched and loosened as though I have been doing yoga for the brain. Thanks Geir!
And the same goes for me. This blogging has been a real inspirational jedi-thingy. Thanks to everyone that has helped me stretch my imagination – you are certainly one of them, Chris.
What I am not agreeing within these recent statements is I have the impression some posters are conveying that “evaluation” is a bad word, something to be shunned.
In fact I believe that “evaluation” as the product of analytical reason is not only good, but essential to living.
Those who generalize “evaluation” as a “bad thing” are proposing that “Ignorance is Strength” and leading folks astray, if they are “deadagenting” analytical reasoning ability. I don’t think it’s quite yet the time to put aside our ability to evaluate situations accurately and live solely by hunch and instinct.
I understand both points of view. Evaluation is an essential ability. An ability I am striving to enhance in myself. Evaluation for another is however a slippery slope. Not at all bad – but a slippery slope nevertheless. And The Bridge To Total Freedom is perhaps the biggest general evaluation I know of. There are pros and cons with that.
I understand the Bridge as the map of a journey that the pc himself has already evaluated from the beginning (and as he continues) as the direction he wants to take and the stops he wants to make along the way. THAT would be the “general evaluation” made – by the pc himself. This is all incorporated in the tech itself (pc there on own self-determinism, hatting, etc).
Again, the Bridge is just a general map. And the compass that points to and indicates progress being made on the journey is the e-meter – which does not evaluate but indicates what is objectively there as a reality in terms of unwanted charge. It’s neither the pc’s nor the C/S’s subjective evaluation.
Now, there are people who would rather take a less structured route and if so Scientology would not be for them and (if tech were in, of course) they would select themselves out So, practically I don’t see the “cons” as regards evaluation.
Last sentence shoud read: So, practically speaking, I don’t see the “cons” as regards evaluation.
What is the intention behind evaluation in auditing (and in life)?
Is it used in the creation of a gradient of agreements with the purpose of gaining control over the other person?
Or is it used to help the Pc look at, and get rid of, the gradient of agreements which had turned him/her into a slave?
As long as the Auditor and C/S are not completely free, there will be a limit in which their obnosis will be blocked by their own barriers, and they will try to enforce them on the Pc as the “facts of life”.
My experience is that the C/S’s and auditor’s case are kept in check by the tech itself, especially since it is a group activity which includes the C/S, auditor, Qual and the pc himself. There’s a built-in checks and balances system when tech is applied correctly. Where obnosis is blocked it would be caught – the exception is in cases of out-tech. And it’s significant that well-trained and well-experienced auditors do attest to this.
Hi Marildi! First of all one big hug for you. I agree it works, and it can be very good as people with great wins can attest. But I don´t think that system will take you all the way, there is a point where each one of us has to take complete control before making the final move towards the summit.
My point rests in the fact that all the Tech, and all the people which have been helped by the Tech, and all the Qual terminals correcting the misapplications of the Tech, have not been able to correct the course followed by the CoS, where a new universe is being made by gradiently enforcing evaluations and agreement on it´s followers.
Here is Ron at his best in one of my favorite quotes:
“Let’s take the subject of Scientology . . . . it is a method of thinking about things. And is just as true as it is workable. And no truer. And is not, in itself, an arbitrary, fascistic uh…police force to make sure that we all think right thoughts. It’s a servant of the mind, a servo-mechanism of the mind, it is not a master of the mind. Scientology will decline, and become useless to man, on the day when it becomes the master of thinking. Don’t think it won’t do that. It has every capability in it of doing that.” – PDC #20
One very big hug back, Rafael! 🙂
I definitely agree with you about evaluations when you are referring to what is going on in “Scientology” currently. But, unless you mean the admin tech, I wouldn’t put it that the Tech itself hasn’t been able to correct misapplications; rather, the management hasn’t insured that it be applied – and by all reports even makes sure now that it is mis-applied. Probably that’s what you are saying too. However, I don’t think LRH in that lecture meant that this would definitely happen, just that it had the “capability in it of doing that.” So I have great hope that the independent field will figure out a management system that will work, because I think it’s a very good path for many people.
And I agree that the Scn system will not take us all the way; one has to be one’s own cause point ultimately. Still, I hold out the notion that Scientology, properly administered, can take us far enough to where we can “take it from there.” You yourself, probably got a pretty good start with Scn, if my guess is right. 😉
Chris and Geir, you are two of my best inspirers – as well as two of my favorite philosophical sparring partners. And on this point of the Bridge being evaluative, I would have to go along with “Joe Howard,” (Dan Koon) one of the highest tech terminals in the world. Here’s an excerpt from an article he wrote posted here: http://www.rediscoverscientology.com/blogs/joe-howard.html
“…Between the mid-50s and mid-60s LRH made numerous discoveries about the mechanisms in the mind that he isolated as the super barriers to living. At one time or another his research focused on communication, problems, overts and withholds, ARC Breaks and Service Facsimiles. When he isolated these as THE key aspects that had to be handled on any case, and in this order, processes were gathered from the past 10 years of research and assembled for use on each Grade…
“After the locks come off you tackle the secondaries and engrams. Today that is handled on New Era Dianetics. In earlier years it was accomplished by Power Processing, Grades V and VA…”
.
In addition to the fact that the Grades were discovered from research to be the super barriers to living as well as key aspects to any case, and the fact that virtually everybody has a reactive mind that can be cleared – there also exists the ultimate adjudication by the meter. i.e. what reads gets run and what doesn’t, doesn’t. And that is what the C/S is supposed to insure. Also, I don’t think any even skimpily hatted pc doesn’t at least understand that the Bridge is a general route and not a personal evaluation.
The upper Bridge may be a different story, I don’t know, But I believe that you, Geir, have had only good things to say about the lower Bridge, personally and generally. Chris, it seems you have not been one of the lucky ones and unfortunately you are not alone. However, out tech does occur and that could account for it. (In any case, you seem to be making up for lost time now. :-))
p.s. Chris, on a second reading of your comment I wonder if I misinterpreted it and you weren’t actually saying that you felt evaluated for on your Bridge auditing. If so, I apologize!
Btw, I’m quoting Dan Koon not because he’s an authority (although he is) but because what he says matches my own experience on different flows and because he had the background data.
Wow thanks for saying the nice things but it gave me pause to think I’ve given the impression that I wasn’t happy with my Grades auditing. I’m trying to remember what I’ve written to give that impression. Regardless, I would like to be clear that I’ve done all the lower bridge once and then had my Grades fully expanded again. Together with Method 1 word clearing this auditing was everything and more that I was hoping for when I got into Scientology. Going Clear and attesting to Clear and doing what then was called the dianetic clear special intensive was quite a wonderful experience for me and it grieves me that I’ve given another impression than this. I had a full battery of objective processes as well which I consider were not needed but C’est la vie, eh? I had very good results from auditing my Grades and I hope this makes my opinion of my own Grades processing very clear.
Yes, very clear! The impression was based on my mistaken understanding (because of reading into what you said about “such evaluation” in response to Geir’s post). Actually, I don’t recall you ever commenting before, one way or another, about your Bridge experience and it’s good to know that it was so positive.
Btw, that’s interesting what you say about not needing the objectives. That’s one area where I don’t believe an e-meter read is needed to run the process (it wouldn’t make sense technically to require one, per my understanding). However, I recall my own objective processes and I know that some were very brief and that’s what I would expect should happen where one was not really needed. No doubt some pc’s get into a grind in such situations, but that would just be a matter of out-tech.
I ask what was the real importance that case auditing had in the evaluation of a person from lrh. lrh says in a reference in product zero that a s.o. member is defined the same way as an ot and in the choice of his closest assistants he was sorrounded by cmo boys like the current leader of the church.
Insane? maybe closely connected to an SP and suffering from it mentally and /or physically, but even then one can produce genius products.
Love the new look. The best up to now.
If there are SP’s, the world is ruled by them otherwise it wouldn’t be the mess it is. The economical system itself is supressive. So by this logic we are all more or less PTS and still doing great things, in greater or lesser degrees.
C/Sing is based on evaluations on how the PC is going, and thus deciding what to do next with him/her. How can one become more free like this? The whole self-determinism idea is just a very well set up illusion. You’re PTS to your own C/S and still doing great things and yet you don’t even know it, so well the system is put up.
In Scn one starts being programmed from the beginning on the subject of freedom. You even believe you are a PC (or preclear) (assuming you are not yet whole or complete) when in fact you are just someone else’s pc (personal computer). It is so obvious. You think you reach amazing conclusions when they are all being induced by others, directly or indirectly.
You end the bridge feeling powerful with a power bought with all your money, all your life and all your soul, delivered to tens of folders and maybe some cameras. You sell your story/stories. For someone to read and comment and make fun of for we all know there isn’t a great many people who handles another’s intimacy with care. Or so it seems to me.
But as with a lot of things in life, one discovers who one is in the presence of what one is not. And the greater the denial on who one is, the greater the amount of what one is not for one to wake up.
Or not.
Dunno… Really.
“,,,one discovers who one is in the presence of what one is not.”
I agree with that, R. As a matter of fact, the negative experience I had in Scientology eventually resulted in some valuable insights. And for me it’s the same with the positive. Of course, that’s from my own personal perspective – but what more than that do we want? Unless (as Valkov pointed out) there’s a societal problem one’s own estimation is really the only thing that matters, wouldn’t you agree?
It’s so difficult to talk about “Scientology” since to so many people it has come to mean all the negative things it evolved into. But if you were included the original tech in your comments (before it got corrupted) I wanted to say that the main thing we should keep in mind is that there are many levels of reality, or frames of reference, or contexts, that can be viewed from. And each and every one of them has its own assumptions, rules and “programming.” I don’t think that point can be overemphasized – in this universe it always comes down to a matter of relativity. Thus, on the subject of desired freedom, the question is – what is the preferred game? And that comes down to the individual’s own estimation and choice. This is clearly stated in the goal of Scn:
“The end object of Scientology is not the making into nothing of all existence or the freeing of the individual of any and all traps everywhere. The goal of Scientology is making the individual capable of living a better life in his own estimation and with his fellows and the playing of a better game.” – Professional Auditor Bulletin 86, 29 May 1956
+1
@ Marildi: nice summary!
I had a fascinating discussion with a die-hard C of S member a while back who congratulated me on the insight I had gotten FROM auditing. Interestingly, the particular insight I had related was one I had before I ever had any contact with Scientology and she was somewhat embarrassed when I told her so. Later, I considered the implications of what she had said – the idea that I got my insights FROM auditing. The truth is, that the auditing facilitated my exploration of my own experiences. It did not GIVE me insights, nor did my insights come from auditing. They came from me. They always did. And they always have, no matter what process or activity facilitated the exploration / expansion.
For me, there is an enormous difference between data / information and meaning / insight. The one comes in from other sources, the other is what I derive from it. I think the thing I like about these discussions is all the data / information from various sources, including the meaning / insight that others bring to the discussion.
Thanks, Maria.
You bring up a huge area of recent insight for me as regards the difference between data and the meaning that it’s given by the individual. I decided that ANY data can lead to insight or cognition – from the data in one’s own bank, as in auditing, to hard physical data as in QM or science in general, to the paranormal data in the “data streams” that can be accessed with “focused intent” (terminology of our consciousness physicist, Tom Campbell). In fact, it can be data received via ANY medium for the transference of knowledge – including the comments in this blog :-).
But the key, key thing is the understanding and meaning a person attaches to data. We’re not just involved in a big accumulation of “facts” or even others’ insights. It’s a matter of personal assessment and evaluation of those that results in our own insight. And sometimes, from the data, there’s even an extrapolation of truth or correction of untruth – which we call a realization or a cognition or an epiphany. (That’s my cognition about cognition, yay!)
I wouldn’t expect you to agree with anything I wrote at all. In fact, not being agreed with makes me lighter and more fluid for when too many agree I become dense and heavy and that is not my favorite shape. And please don’t indoctrinate me. And please, don’t back up your opinion with someone else’s! Why would you do that? Aren’t you certain of what you think? You thinking it is not enough for it to be right?
Jesus. (a word like God that comes only with despair).
You are still in the Scn organization you criticize and condemn and haven’t noticed it yet, you meaning many. And you are all here with the hope of still making it better by spending hours debating ridiculous issues with so many things around you that are so much more important to do. Just to justify the waste of time it was and to integrate an experience that is not yet integrated and maybe will never be because it’s not supposed to. I don’t do much about what surrounds me either, more than being loyal to who I am and dealing with each thing at a time that crosses my path, but I don’t claim I would do better nor I have delusions of saving mankind. Mankind has no salvation. It is a body and bodies are doomed to destruction. What can be saved is the individual. And I am certainly not stuck on such a crap like Scn.
It is not even a matter of Scn. It is a matter of belief systems and their seemingly rational (or not) practices. When you have deep rooted beliefs they will reflect into practices you will always find a reason and/or justification to perpetuate. And if you don’t let them go, you will be down with it, when the system goes down.
Corruption is the destiny of all systems. Be in one and you’ll find yourself corrupted, sooner or later.
When will you let go?
What life is there after Scn? Have you REALLY thought about it?
Wow. Good rant. I spend quite a bit of time thinking about life after Scientology just as I spent quite a bit of time thinking about life during Scientology and life before I was in Scientology.
Brother, maybe you’ve a question of your own you would like to frame up? I would be interested and willing to contribute.
Thank’s, sometimes I like my rants too. My name is R, so it could be R from rant, or from Reality, that thing that sometimes hurts. Not because it’s really hard, just because sometimes the thoughts about it can be harder to be broken through by it.
Good for you. I hope you get somewhere with your thinking. Or not, if that’s what you want.
No I don’t have a question, but thank you for your availability.
I’d rather look at the lighting strikes and feel the thunders in my body.
They won’t last forever. The lightnings, and my body.
R, thanks for your straightforward reply. That’s the kind that produces the most profitable discussion – and can be the most helpful insight even when it doesn’t become part of the discussion.
I heard an amusing analogy recently as to why “systems” (using your word) are needed. The idea was that if you had a football game with no rules, no structure to it except the one goal of getting the ball to the far end of the field, you would have nothing but a very chaotic and bloody battle. I would add that even within an individual’s own subjective reality, a certain amount of structure is needed – more so for some than others, and the heavy structure of Scn does work for some people.
That football analogy reminded me of another truism (true for me not because someone else said it, although many have in different ways): that you have to be an individual and a member of the team at the same time. Do you believe that too? Apparently, you yourself do have certain beliefs or you wouldn’t have written all you did, if you see what I mean.
Actually, I understand the problem with systems (as well as the need for them), which is why Scientology or anything else can’t be the whole of who someone is. That’s one thing I’ve come to see as a result of these discussions, by the way, and a good example of why we spend time here – i.e. we are letting go, as you put it, and learning how to not get stuck again. But it’s also the case that many of us still see how Scientology (at its unadulterated best) can be an effective tool, at least in part and at least for some people, to “save the individual.”
One last note. You said: “when too many agree I become dense and heavy.” Right there is an interesting new idea for me to think about! 🙂
Hi Marildi, glad you took my answer the way you did as you could see I was not directing anything at you personally nor I adjectivated you in any way.
You make some good points but no point is that seductive for me right now to make me get into a written argumentation, debate or discussion (and I mean it in a good way) but if we met, I would listen to you carefully and attentively and I am sure we would have a great talk.
I am not against systems for the sake of it. I experiment many of them in the world, not to mention the solar one (and others) and they can be truly enjoyable but in a game people should not be forced to play, even less when injured, if you see what I mean with my analogy. I could say a lot more but really, I am not into it.
Ultimately I am not against anything, but shaking can be pleasant and fun and who knows, necessary. And vibrations can produce great melodies.
I don’t mean to leave you or anyone in mistery but clarifying the mistery of existence is not my task as I don’t see any need for clarification nor a real mistery at all that can make me stop living it. To each one his task and we all excel.
Everyone is able to clarify it as everyone IS an answer.
HI R,
You do say some interesting things! And, not at all to try forcing or even cajoling you into playing this blog game with us, especially if you are recovering from some injury (not to imply I think you are), but I hope you do play whenever the spirit moves you. Personally, I’ve worked it out for myself as to which “conversations” here (or anywhere) I care to engage in and that keeps my participation at a free-feeling, “unforced” level of enjoyment and benefit.
If I understand what you mean by shaking, I agree that it can be “pleasant and fun and who knows, necessary. And vibrations can produce great melodies.” LOL, now I’m quoting you too! But I only quote things I agree with and when I feel someone else said it well. I would guess you write poetry, or should, as you do put many things in an interesting, poetic way.
But back to the shaking – that’s maybe the best word to describe this “for fun and profit” activity. It is “shaking” our viewpoints and we are winning, and the winning part in and of itself can’t be bad from the perspective of anyone who sees things from no particular system frame – or sees things from several of them, like I try to do.
Anyway, I like your idea that everyone is able to clarify the mystery of existence and everyone is an answer. And if we did meet, I would certainly listen carefully to you too and, yes, we would have a great talk!
Hi Marildi,
I usually do things when the spirit moves me.
“Me and “the spirit” are best friends. I could even say, we’re siamase twins, and sometimes even cats. And then, we spend sometimes apart. You know how cats are
😀 An amusing philosophical metaphor. Siamese twins, Siamese cats. The other theory, of course – you are the cat. (But you knew that ;-))
I am not a cat but sometimes I like to give myself some airs 😉
I’ve decided there’s just One Big Cat, made up of all the little cats. Some have hairs. Some have airs. Most are cool cats. Cool. 🙂
if that decision makes you happy, good 🙂
but cats don’t really care about that 😛
Dear R, i am willing to make you feel more fluid and lighter. Is this ” what can be saved is the individual ” some sort of materialistic ateism doctrine ?.
Hello Rafael,
Thank you for that.
You can define, label and take the quoted sentence the way you like it and feels clear and comfortable for you. As for me, they are just thoughts and I don’t feel the need of building a system with them and even less labeling them.
Ultimately, there is nothing to (be) save(d) (from).
Hello R, quoting you, precisely, if you think that ultimately there is nothing to (be) save(d) (from) and you consider that spending hours debating ridiculous issues with so many things around you that are so much more important to do, well, what are you doing in this blog?
Hi Rafael,
I “met” Geir” more or less 2 years ago so I come here to visit although randomly and not very often. I read a few things, I rarely comment and even less enter into debates.
No one really wants what they claim to want the most: truth and freedom, for they are deadly. Not even truth and freedom want themselves.
People want illusions and this is the role of art. Art is that thing that takes you to an imaginary place where for some brief moment you get the impression truth and freedom are something else.
Dream, but know what you are doing.
And with this supressive act I end my act, knowing you will do great things.
Now excuse me for I have better things to do, such as delighting myself with this ultimate pleasure that is a dark chocolate cookie crisp icecream. Not very sweet, just enough.
G’night
(The cold is burning my hands…)
Rafael
2011-11-18 @ 02:51
Hi Marildi! First of all one big hug for you. I agree it works, and it can be very good as people with great wins can attest. But I don´t think that system will take you all the way, there is a point where each one of us has to take complete control before making the final move towards the summit. My point rests in the fact that all the Tech, and all the people which have been helped by the Tech, and all the Qual terminals correcting the misapplications of the Tech, have not been able to correct the course followed by the CoS, where a new universe is being made by gradiently enforcing evaluations and agreement on it´s followers.
***This is a good a timely post Rafael. My supporting reference would be the “Know-to-Mystery Scale.”*** -Thanks –
To Geir:
IYO, in what way starting your arguments by pointing out to the other they’re being defensive can add positively to the discussion? (It doesn’t mean they were not defensive, it doesn’t mean it can’t be a problem or that you shouldn’t be aware of it – but was it really necessary to point it out?)
I don’t expect an answer.
(Sorry to put this here but that comment you made is closed to replies.)
I point out what pops to my mind – so that the recipient can correct my reality if it needs correction. The alternative is that I think so but that the other person never gets the chance to correct my viewpoint.
But the remark you made seems to be about another’s reality, which is their defensiveness. And if the other does not really care if you think of him in those terms and doesn’t correct you, you go with that vision uncorrected. So what?
Again, what does the other’s real or imagined defensiveness matter for the subject being discussed? And if they are in fact defensive, does that make their points less valid or less worthy of attention or consideration?
As I said, I speak my mind so that the other person at least gets a chance to correct my viewpoint. If they don’t, they don’t. Simple. No fuss.
You mean you speak your mind to get a chance of being correct(ed).
I got it now but it seemed that your viewpoint was also over another’s defensiveness, besides the subject being discussed but I guess I got it wrong.
Still you didn’t answer my initial question, which was what that remark on the other person had to do with the subject. I was just trying to aid to the perfection of your future interventions in rational debates. Big fail.
Cool
It seems you are trying to be guilty of something that you seem eager to correct 😉
Like, what is this supposed to mean: “You mean you speak your mind to get a chance of being correct(ed).” – i.e. why the “(ed)”?
The remark was my viewpoint on the discussion itself – something that if left uncorrected could influence the discussion. That should satisfy as an answer to your initial question, am I right?
Now, would you rather I kept the viewpoint to myself and not let the other have a chance to correct it?
it seems when you don’t like the talk, you like to point out things about the one you are talking with 😉 you naughty. i can see you.
correct(ed) means correct and corrected. an easier and faster way of writing two words.
of course you are right, isn’t that why you speak your mind?
the mind always wants to be right.
as for the heart… doesn’t give a f*** about being right 🙂 and what to say of a mind translating the heart… you just can’t argue with it.
you know i love you don’t you? 🙂
“of course you are right, isn’t that why you speak your mind?”
No.
😀 of course not. i wouldn’t expect you to answer otherwise 🙂
sorry, forgot to answer your question.
i don’t have any preference on your techniques of communication: they are of your choice only. i just wonder why would be so important for you that another corrects your viewpoint on their defensiveness and how important it is that you are(‘nt) correct about it. this is getting circular because you are not confronting my question.
you are giving yourself a chance of something, masking it with good intentions for someone else. i am not saying you are not good, you are just not being fully honest with yourself in this case about your own motive on making a remark of a personal matter about another person, such as them being defensive. that was not what the discussion was about.
admit it, stubborn mind!
“you are just not being fully honest with yourself in this case about your own motive on making a remark of a personal matter about another person, such as them being defensive. that was not what the discussion was about.”
Wow. That’s some hefty jumping to conclusions right there. Are you projecting your own intentions onto me here?
that defense tactic is old, Geir.
but nice try.
i am not projecting anything first because the subject here is your personal remark on another, out of the subject you were discussing and here i am all on topic, and secondly i never claimed i want to be corrected or that i am giving you a chance to do it. i am doing this for me, and for me only 🙂 but still i hope you like it! if not… well, at least one did. me. and i can like it, because i didn’t harm anybody. or did i?
nah… don’t think so.
And on being honest and speaking my mind; You are not making much sense to me. Seems you are adamant on picking a fight or something. I have seen you do that several times before. I am not interested.
no fight, just fun. but i absolutely understand you don’t like it and that you are not having fun. after all, you’re being questioned and just a few people don’t mind about it. if any. and this is apparently a simple and small matter… imagine if it were a big one.
that remark about me… was dirty. another tactic. but i don’t really care. you are trying to disminish the value of my words, remarks and arguments sharing a negative observation about me to many others (and you are not giving any context). you are doing the exact same thing i started talking about on this conversation.
it’s cool. it’s here for you to see and one day you will see it and get the correction you claim to want and work for consciously.
i guess the good night was not real, maybe it will be now
good night
Please chill.
i’m sorry if you don’t like it. i really didn’t expect it any other way.
“please chill”… don’t know what you mean. you affraid your mind melts?
why so serious?
“you affraid your mind melts?”
Yes.
one last thing. if you have a pretty clear viewpoint on yourself, you won’t need validation or correction from others about the way you see them, unless it’s a negative evaluation of their state of mind or character. you also don’t need to worry about giving them a chance of anything for those who know how to speak and “defend” themselves, they will do it and they will not wait for you to give them a chance to do it. so in communication styles, when that is not the subject being discussed, worry more about your own and let others use theirs. if anything about theirs bothers you, give yourself a chance to understand why 🙂 just don’t put it as something you are doing for them. it’s for you and for you only. getting to others will naturally follow it… like a shadow. (love this shadow thing, can be so good)
now excuse me because i don’t mean to indoctrinate, teach or correct you.
i am just of a bit of a defiant nature (though somewhat with a conscious purpose), despite not expressing it very often (by conscious choice). it’s too much work… and i am a lazy cat. or so it’s convenient for me to believe 😉
good night
After all that, you go “now excuse me because i don’t mean to indoctrinate, teach or correct you.”. Then I would add; hehe
As I said, you seem eager to correct something of which you yourself is guilty. May suggest a quick glance in the mirror?
Wow, that worked out really well. Because of R’s querying you on your comment you got a chance to correct the impression – just like what you were trying to do. Cool!
besides wanting to be right, the mind always gathers some fans to support their rightness. your mind is scoring Geir, your mind is scoring!
+100
you’re a bit silly but i am way much more.
i win in silliness and like this we both can be happy. because i don’t really mind…
now good night, for real
huh?
ridiculous and senseless, right?
i think so too…
You got the last word.
did you censor my answer on your “quick glance at the mirror” comment?
it was not offensive… i wonder why. what a shame.
now your mind really scored.
but i can answer here. unless you censor it again.
thank you for the suggestion; i look myself on the mirror very often and so i get tired of my image and that’s why i go on recycling it. i can be vain, but i am always novel.
You probably find it somewhere among the answers). I don’t censor on my blog (so far). I do tell people to take a hike when they get too rude or accusative. You may take that as a hint.
i know what you do regarding the communications you don’t like, that’s what i have been talking about. and i certainly don’t need any hints, you can tell me things directly. i can take them.
the comment is nowhere. you deleted it. it could have been by mistake.
i now wonder where i was accusative or rude.
i know assertiveness can look like that but if you look really well, it’s just an appearence. i know you can see beyond them. “appearences”
“you deleted it”
“i now wonder where i was accusative”
Are you losing it?
No hint: Stop spamming the blog. Take the yellow card and go to bed.
you asked for it. because i have a good memory, i remember more of what you deleted. i said, wow, using the “guilty” tactic again?
did i make you feel guilty of anything? really, you don’t need to feel guilty about such a small thing. you didn’t commit any crime. and why would i feel guilty if i am not commiting any crime either. and why would you even say that? that is Scientology crap still in your head.
.
i didn’t mean to make you feel wrong or guilty. i just questioned the need of making that remark about the other before presenting your arguments on the subject being discussed, which was a different one. and because you didn’t like it and/or accepted its possible value, it all became harder. maybe there was an attack? even if just imagined. maybe you got defensive in the first place because you didn’t like what the other said. that i don’t know, but you do. or will soon. because you are different and don’t want to use a tactic that is way too commonly used as self-defense against flows one dislikes. there is nothing wrong about becoming defensive, as long as one doesn’t become offensive and still can make his point across.
i’m sorry if i made you feel wrong, guilty, upset or uncomfortable. i really didn’t mean to. but maybe you will think twice before using that unconscious tactic of defense against another’s arguments or (imagined/real) unpleasant written tones.
get down from your pedestal and grow, Geir.
maturity is, above all, to not take oneself too seriously and exterior means, if there is such a thing, being capable of detachment from one self-image, and/or self-opinion.
and i am not affraid you think i am talking to or of myself. i like to remember what i know so thank you very much for that.
and here’s your yellow card… (not to say something else) i am not a player on your game. i just visit once in a while.
calling it “spamm” is playing dirty and you played more than once so the card should be for you but since you’re the space owner… rules change. i understand it. fully.
and now i am out of here… for good. i don’t appear very often because i can be very inconvenient and i really don’t like to disturb and if i would fully embrace my task, it would be the most ungrateful one. that’s why i’d rather be still… and beam, more than talk or write.
til next time, take care
(and please delete double comments, like the one below… you don’t need to make me look bad to win the prize. you already tried it more than once, it doesn’t work. the prize is yours from the beginning, i never wanted it but reconsider your tactics and why you got so offended…)
I am glad you posted this. The title of this thread is “Crazy and Amazing”. Well, you are not Amazing.
I never deleted any post of yours. Me letting this one through would validate that.
As is customary, when the player continues on the path that gave her a yellow card and do not heed the warning, a red card is awarded. You have worn out your welcome. Don’t go away upset. Just go away.
Please also stop e-mailing me.
I’m not much for shadow boxing either.
I am more for shadow boxing than boxing real people.
The shadow is impactless and the person gets it for real and I still have some compassion left.
But variety is a good thing; glad one can choose
R, when there’s no reply button you can just go to the nearest comment that has one, above the comment you want to reply to.
Thank’s for the info Marildi. I just applied it successfully in a recent comment of yours.
Thats why I love reading this blog 🙂
besides wanting to be right, the mind always gathers some fans to support their rightness. your mind is scoring Geir, your mind is scoring!
+100 😀
you’re a bit silly but i am way much more.
i win in silliness and like this we both can be happy. because i don’t really mind…
now good night, for real
You know Geir, from time to time I look at the title of your blog – explorer of free will. So aptly titled. And each time I come back to post it is from a fresh viewpoint and so the title shifts in meaning for me.
I remember when I first started co-auditing. It was so exciting because I saw it as an EXPLORATION. An opportunity to extend the parameters of my faculties whether they be physical sense or larger realities or smaller realities. I did not see myself as someone needing to be “repaired” or “saved” or “fixed” or any other demeaning status. I think there is a big pit that people fall into when they take on the role of “teacher” or “guru” or “doctor” and the corresponding roles, “student” or “chela” or “patient.” The assumption of the roles alone is an evaluation. Now I knew there was this title “preclear” but I never believed in it really, only in the sense that I knew I was already working on resolving matters to do with exploring free will and that included discovery of any distorted ideas I might not have noticed. I was willing to admit that I might have created distortion along the way. I was not willing to admit that this made me less in any way. In fact, I saw it as a feather in my cap – I had the strength and the courage to explore, to push past the consensus, to really get in there and rummage around and ransack and rip my world to pieces to get to new vistas. I still do this. In retrospect, I think the gotcha is in the nomenclature and the attitudes that result from them. One day I was on staff, the next I was not on staff. It was a total shock to find that as a public person, my “status” was now such that I needed to be “guided” and “herded” and “helped” and so on.
Thanks for that. For me, the title is evolving and changing and constantly morphing. I am working on a broader thesis that will soon be published. It strikes to the heart of free will and exploration.
That’s exciting! Can you tell us more about it? Or at least where and when it will be published.
I am polishing it via several talks and lectures I hold. When I feel it is ready for publishing in article form, I will try to get the time to do just that. Right now I simply don’t know.
Cool. Well, maybe we’ll see you first on a TEDx video or somethin’. 🙂
Could be… 😉
Saw the writing on the wall. 😉
Hope you ….hurry up!
That’s a really good post Maria. I feel the same way. I had to learn how degraded I was so that I would be aware enough to seek the help of the Church. My first day in Scientology my OCA was high right across the graph. I was then counselled on how “glib” I was so that I could be helped. I guess I bought that as I then spent many years in Scientology, then many more years “worrying” about Scientology after separating from Scientology.
Today, I am back to that curious and creative person that walked into Scientology that day over 34 years ago. Add to that the wealth of experience I’ve gotten both in routine life and in Scientology and I see that I too have been on quite a journey of exploration.
Both Crazy and Amazing.
Good post 🙂
Thank you Geir. Oh yeah, almost forgot. The Church did finally engineer my OCA down to where it wasn’t “glib” anymore. Qual at CST did that in only a few years. So “that tech” really did work! haha
The last revision I know of is from 1991. Did I miss something?
oops. I was unsuccessfully trying to be funny. What I meant was that my OCA graphed high when I entered Scientology and later while in the Sea Org, the graph points lowered. I was being facetious about them “engineering my OCA down.” I really don’t know anything about this personality test aside from answering the questions on it.
Exploration…, yes this approach to auditing is more interesting instead of that of negative gain.
One thing I do not think I have seen above is how society may push someone with non-conform ideas into maybe regular madness (depression, suicide).
I am quite sure there are examples galore, but let me just bring one that did not that extremely tragic. Some of you may have tried to read “Ulysses” by James Joyce.
And yes, I do think this a book you TRY to read (and then may discover surprisingly that you have suceeded).
It is one of the most unreadable books I have been through, and IMHO this book is written in a code out of sheer frustration. This because one of his earlier books, a collection of short stories called “Dubliners” (well worth reading btw.) had taken nearly 10 years to get published because it was having what we now would call “explisit content” … :
Quote from wiki :
“… 1905, (when) Joyce first sent a manuscript to a publisher, and in 1914 (, when) the book was finally published, Joyce submitted the book 18 times to a total of 15 publishers. The book’s publishing history is a harrowing tale of persistence in the face of frustration.”
Out of pure frustration, “Ulysses” (and later “Finnegan’s Wake”) was written so that it could not be “censored” as explisit.
Others of you that are knowledgable about English litterature and language may have things to add to (or correct on) this, please do …
Hi Tor,
I don’t have a lot of knowledge about English literature but like many people am somewhat familiar with the idea you commented on. However, your post along with others on this thread has got me thinking more about non-conformists and the paranormal vs. “crazy” vs. truly crazy – and as they all relate to creative.
I’ve been learning more about the paranormal from an author who’s also a physicist and has been studying the subject for over 30 years, on both a personal and scientific basis. It has opened my eyes to “other realities” and makes me stop and think about all kinds of “abnormal” behavior.
I was thinking, the autistic are a great example, as they are way outside the norm and yet can be extremely talented or amazingly brilliant in some area. According to that physicist (Tom Campbell) and his theory about paranormal experience, there exist an unlimited variety of “data streams” a person can or could access in this viritual/digital, computer-simulated reality of ours, as he describes it And the autistic apparently do just that – access certain data streams but apparently not the normal ones.
I figure that in a similar way, any brilliantly creative person may appear crazy or dysfunctional if they are “tuned in” in a way that normal people aren’t.
I’m quite interested in paranormal phenomena myself. My mother always claimed her line of the family were so called “vardøger”, a norwegian word for a kind of paranormal sensitivity.
I’ll check out that Campbell (even though I’m not even through that “Info Phil” stuff … 😛 , there just seems to be too few hours in the day)
The “problem” kind of is that this is a very “esoteric” field I think, you must “have been there yourself” to know or believe. Then it’s quite easy from society’s side to throw away others’ experiences as gobbledygook from mindless people. Especially if the person in question is showing other types of non-normal behaviour. It’s a bit like trying to explain to a blind man what a colour is like … 😛
Ah Tor, you took our advice and are actually reading the Information Philosophy article :). (Btw, you put some of us to shame with all the reading you do!) If information science and philosophy interest you are going to really like Campbell’s Theory of Everything. He describes existence (with lots of very good supporting principles) as fundamentally an overarching system of information – from physics to metaphisics. And paranormal reality is one area or “stream” of that information. What is so appealing is that it makes all the esoteric stuff easy to understand and relates it very clearly to the “normal,” everything from quantum physics on up. Try to watch that series of videos and tell me what you think. As you can tell I’m pretty impressed – haven’t been so with anything since Scientology (but don’t hold that against it :P).
You are from good stock, I would say, the line of “vardøger.” 😉
Oooh thanks ! (not blushing this time though) … 😀
Btw, may I ask which part of the world you belong in ? 😉
Else I have actually some weird’itiesI guess, ever since was old to realize what it was, I can actually see it in the eyes of a woman when she’s pregnant. There is a glimpse of light there, even when she doesn’t know herself … 🙂
Also I have experienced things that I have dreamt earlier, like dreaming the future.
And yes, I have qualified at least one case that I am sure it is not just a “fiction of the mind” … So I guess I am among the “chosen ones” 😉 , my mam always also claimed it was because we had gypsy blood somewhere down the line … 😀
That is pretty neat, Tor – how you can dream the future. And see when a woman is pregnant. I remember years ago a woman who would know with certainty the very moment she became pregnant. It seemed ultra mysterious to me back then. But now, with my newfound understanding of information being “computerized” by consciousness, I have a concept of how that could be. It would seem that lady had the ability to tune into the data stream (information) of the body’s systems. And it seems you do too! (Hope that doesn’t take the charm out of it for you, but you’re still weird and charming anyway. ;))
I already knew from Scientology about the data banks of the body – they’re called the “genetic entity.” Each and every cell has memory banks too, which experiments prove. And of course the thetan (soul or spirit – you probably know that) has a complete memory bank of data. But all these banks are apparently only part of the complete and total information system of consciousness (according to Campbell’s model). I find it fascinating! And it explains so much about the paranormal – as well as the normal. Along with all living things, the physical universe itself is a whole bank of digital info that is thrown up on the computer screen “as needed.” Wild, huh?
Okay, gypsy guy, as for where I live – how about we test you?! See how close you can pinpoint it and then I’ll tell you how you did. And no cheating by getting help from your mam (that must be the Norwegian word). Hey, this is gonna be fun!
Well, a bit easier than I expected as you’ve noted further that you’re in US … (Thanksgiving, btw have you seen the movie “Alice’s Restaurant” – really a hippie movie but fun …) … that could explain why you’re not into ENGLISH literature … 😀
“Mam” is actually a misspelling from my side (Damn … 😦 ) , the nowegian words are “mamma” or “mor” … 🙂
I really don’t know how I can dream the future, it doesn’t prove anything anyway but it opened my mind quite early for the possibility of time not being one-dimensional …
The weird thing is when you suddenly realize that you are not imagining this. That happened when I remembered a dream because of some oddities … Some person you wouldn’t expect to do something very specific …
Then maybe 6 months I suddenly realized I was in that setting from that strange dream and I suddenly knew what WOULD happen the next minute or so … and it did … :-\ … including that person doing what you wouldn’t usually expect …
The “seeing” in the eyes is pure sensitivity I think, I can somehow interprete the diff lights being reflected in a person’s eyes, like when you see someone is being sad or happy, just a different kind of light …
Happy thanksgiving ! 🙂
Yes, Tor, I know – I hated to give it away! But it’s a big country and your bio-sensors (learned that term from Maria’s post) are still challenged to narrow it down. 😉
I love hearing about your extra-sensory abilities. The “lights” in the eyes is kind of like what they say – the eyes are the doorway to the soul.
No, I never saw “Alice’s Restaurant” but from what I know it’s a good example of out-of-the-box crazy Americans (I’m feeling particularly patriotic :-D, just before Thanksgiving Day here).
Well, thank you for your American holiday wishes and a very Happy Thanksgiving to you!
Interesting questions Tor.
1. Oddly, I’ve read ULYSSES and found it as frustrating to read as Joyce found it to publish! Tit for tat. (Joyce sample: Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon. High sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, …) For me it reads like someone doing “free association” from psychoanalysis (Valkov comments?). Knowing that free association would have begun and come into vogue during James Joyce’s lifetime, and beset with an angst socially rooted in his homosexuality, I imagined that he was actually writing in this manner to work things out for himself.
So I took a shot at writing this way. You know those “Spanish Prisoner” get rich scam-letters from Nigeria that we all get in our email boxes? Well as practice — don’t laugh — I wrote back to a dozen of those using what I considered that same “stream of consciousness” style of writing. It’s pretty easy to do. I put the difficulty level at juggling “2 oranges with two hands to begin” and “3 oranges with two hands to be proficient.” Regardless, I had these long-winded conversations with these grifters to sort of practice this style of writing. The result was a dozen or so apparently 2-way comm cycles ( at least the words were there – parts of speech, see?) So there were these complete sentences which said nothing as nothing was trying to be communicated. Another partial example of this writing has been done yesterday on this thread by R, who I think it is fair to say had something on their mind but never quite spit out the item. And there is another name for stream of consciousness or free association writing and that is “rant.”
James Joyce’s literary and social legacy is crazy AND amazing. I only find his rant-writing to be crazy. To be kind, I find it amazing for its volume of craziness. But then I am not an opinion leader in the field of anything, so what?
But really? I think James Joyce was just pulling all our chains!
😀 Fair enough, you’re not alone either … … But try “Dubliners”, that’s worth a read …
Thanks for the comment btw. … 🙂
Chris, I’m glad you brought up R because I think what happened here with her is very much on topic. In her “rant” as you called it, she minimally came across as unusual, different, eccentric, out-of-the-box – and most likely she wouldn’t mind being seen as such since it seems to be her knowing intention to have that beingness.
She also appears to be a creative person, considering her style of verbal expression. But unfortunately, that very style on top of English as a second language may have made it more difficult to get a correct understanding of what she was saying, let alone her intention. I had to read most of her posts more than once before I felt I even understood what was being said. Once I did they didn’t seem as “off.”
In your other post today you were differentiating between “crazy” as deviating from the norm and crazy as destructive. In relation to R, I was sorry that she stepped off on the wrong foot so badly before we got a chance to know her better and have a larger base for evaluating whether she is essentially someone who deviates or someone who is destructive. If it’s simply a matter of deviation from the norm, then perhaps we could have helped her understand the basis for the “rules of the game,” and she might have made a unique contribution. And she herself may have benefitted greatly, which is the most unfortunate loss, IMHO.
R’s eccentricity could have been a cute and endearing device. I have no problem with her personality. With respect, what I understood from reading her post was that she was someone in the midst of the ballooning sphere of inconsistencies within her own universe, wanting to reach out and talk about it, but untrained enough — or unethical enough — not to speak her mind. I believe she was here being well received but she was suppressing her disagreements so much she couldn’t spit out what she wanted to talk about. Thus the rant. Regardless of any yellow or red card, if she wanted to participate here in a more honest way, I already know no one would object. We can use all the crazy and amazing people that we can get.
That is true. I have more data on “R”, though to know that the red card was highly justified. It just wouldn’t have stopped.
Chris, I too felt there was desire to reach out but not knowing how to do so. Nevertheless, I’m glad to know now that Geir based his decision on other data besides what we had.
.
Geir, it’s good you posted that. Greater understanding can make a big difference. 🙂
. . . And my other guess from the first post of R’s, which I answered was OSA TROLL as Geir is still a rich target for the Church. I didn’t mention this before as I didn’t want to make that biased of a remark on Gier’s blog. He hasn’t promoted being accusative and judgmental so I didn’t want to let a troll fire me up. I’m writing it now to Marildi because Geir didn’t need more data than what was presented on the blog for the red card. I didn’t get that she was being creative, I got that she was ranting with no particular point.
Chris, you seem to have changed your mind but I was really only saying the very things you had said before – that you sensed she was reaching and didn’t quite know how, etc. It seemed to me she might have been an example of someone who needs to “find a safe pathway through which to discharge their re-stimulated charge” as you put it in another post. And I’m just idealistic enough, or naïve or silly enough, to have hoped for that.
And I thought that it was too bad she stepped in it right away before she had a chance to relax and learn the ropes – and before we might have had a chance to help her be able to do so. Anyway, what I mainly wanted to express on that previous post was that I was sorry it worked out the way it did – until I learned from Geir’s post that he was operating on more data than just the blog comments. That’s when I realized that it wouldn’t have worked out anyway.
Again, I may be naïve or ignorant and your perceptions are correct, but OSA troll? If you are following Marty’s and other blogs you know that OSA has way too many blazing fires to put out these days and way too few to do it to spend time on a blog that isn’t actively trying to bring down the Church. So I don’t think there’s that much chance of OSA trolls hanging around here. (And I’ve now opened myself up to being shot right down by whomever, LOL. But that’s okay. I’ll learn something or other, I’m sure. ;-))
Marildi, You are right, OSA was a stretch. Troll not so much.
Meetcha half way, Chris. Troll I can see as possible, but that’s a bit of a stretch for me. I’ll throw my perception of it in the bullpen for now. 😉
As a long-time participant on Geir’s blogs (starting with his original blog when he first left the C of S,) I have learned that there are people who jump in to key discussions that are yielding particularly illuminating / freeing ideas. The pattern is always to attack Geir personally, attempt to make Geir look bad, one way or another and a definite effort to discredit Geir. I’ve learned to simply not participate in such efforts for they are based on the erroneous notion that Geir is trying to be a “guru” or “authority” rather than what he is, which is an explorer and facilitator of exploration. Geir allows / facilitates open doors. R’s effort was to facilitate closed doors by discrediting Geir and distracting everyone here from the open doors, doors that open wider and wider and wider. I see it as shadow boxing because such activity always starts off sounding very sincere and then devolves to personal attacks on Geir and/or discussion participants.
Very good Marildi, half-way is good.
+1 Maria plus I haven’t worked through all the refs you posted above but am working on it… Thanks.
Hmm, maybe I was a bit unclear, but it was “Dubliners” that Joyce found frustrating to publish, and thus wrote “Ulysses” in a code … 🙂
But, yeah I’m not fond of the stream-of-consciousness either and it took me two tries to come through “Ulysses” and I never the “code” so I can’t say I understood it … 😀
Yeah, not being a Joyce fan, your comment did go over my head. Maybe I will find and give DUBLINERS a read, just because you recommended it.
🙂
2. TWO CATEGORIES OF ABERRATION:
CRAZY vs. SENSIBLE; and SANE vs. INSANE:
Throughout this thread we’ve been using these words and mashing them together and using them interchangeably under the subject of aberration, but I’ve been using these dichotomies to form up two separate categories of aberration. When talking about social behavior where aberration can cause a person’s actions to have noticeable deviations from normal then I refer to “crazy” if they go naked when wearing clothing would be sensible. I reserve talking about being sane for the constructive person and insane for the destructive person — as a generality.
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto? Maybe I’m unnecessarily splitting hairs. Does making this difference help or make sense to you?
Clarification by compartmenting ideas does help.
Nice ! No, this is not hairsplitting but a rather sensible grouping.
I think one also should add conform vs. conform as well … people with “crazy” or unusual ideas but with “normal” behaviour …
Good point, Tor. I don’t think there should be an encouragement of non-conformist behavior as a necessary route to creativity (“got to be crazy to be creative”), or that non-conformity is necessarily commendable in and of itself.
Agree completely ! Yes, encourage out-of-the-box-thinking and open-mindedness, but not non-confromist-behaviour per se …
3. Tor says: “One thing I do not think I have seen above is how society may push someone with non-conform ideas into maybe regular madness (depression, suicide).”
I see madness in a thunderstorm. When the ball of considerations which we call a thundercloud becomes very heavily charged, that potential, that wild inconsistency, is “seeking” a positive terminal of comparable magnitude. When it finds it, it discharges its potential energy and the resulting kinetic can sometimes be destructive when terminals of incomparable magnitude unluckily find themselves in the path of this discharge.
Likewise, I see the reactive mind as a ball, a suppressed ball of considerations. When this ball becomes re-stimulated or charged-up, it needs a safe pathway through which to relieve this charge and to find equilibrium. Recognizing and training a person to recognize this fact and to find a safe pathway through which to discharge their re-stimulated charge I believe is the purpose of anger-management training and would be equivalent to ethics training. Auditing and other therapies would have the purpose of relieving the source of this potential charge altogether. But when society’s rules are such that a person’s desire to confront and deal with the inconsistencies contained within their minds is suppressed, then the mental and behavioral reactivity can begin to manifest. If prevented from discharging then the madness and consequent psychotic behavior ensues and this long-winded reply is supposed to address your question of how society may push a person to madness.
Really good post. Loved the concept of, “recognizing and training a person to recognize” their own reactivity; loved the reactive mind comparison to a thunderstorm. Compassionate and compelling, respectively. And you did nicely address the question and make the point of how society may push a person to madness – i.e. by not providing for them to vent, to use the vernacular of the day. 🙂
Ah, lovely, just the kind of ideas I looked for … 🙂
There are those ultra-stubborn-minded people like Edison (“… now I know 100 ways of making a lightbulb that doesn’t work … ” or similar) (btw, you among those Geir ? 🙂 ) and those (like myself) feeling some level of strain from resistance …
Above here somewhere it is noted by someone that we might should try to reduce the suffering of those who feel strain. Those Edisons out there will usually come through anyway, but not necessarily the others and along the way the world may lose some brilliant ideas …
And. actually I think training in handling resistance and non-support is just as important to these people as giving them an easier way, if not more …
Tor you mentioned a code – the title is ULYSSES, who went on the great Greek odyssey. Therefore, for me the code seems fairly transparent that this book was Joyce’s rambling odyssey through the stream of his own consciousness or mind.
Again, if it evokes anything for anyone, then good. But I don’t think James Joyce expected us to duplicate very much directly from his writing down the rambling inconsistencies as they appeared to him our of his universe.
Just a reply on that, the book is actually a written with the “Odyssey” as a template. But that is the obvious part, the code is … somehow lost I think … 😀
We have seen the last of “R”. For the first time on this blog, I have deleted an incoming comment – a comment she posted after I red-carded her.
Too bad. I made a stab at getting in comm but R wasn’t interested and so continued to rant. The upside though was that R’s rant focused my attention on the crazy/amazing OP and I put together a couple thoughts which I posted to answer to Tor’s questions above.
https://isene.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/crazy-and-amazing/#comment-10537
I hope you find it interesting.
Also on topic and referring to Tor’s question about what pressure society would put on a person to drive them mad, I would use R’s rant as an example of the type of thing which drove LRH mad. Insincere students/PCs — anyone pretending to desire help to get better when their agenda was destructive.
A valid point methinks.
Nice layout btw, this one I like … 🙂
@ Chris
I like your thunderstorm idea. As I have been working through my own experiences and really observing what goes on (as best I can) I find myself telling others, just ignore it – its just a storm passing through.
I found an entire series of essays by Ingo Swann that explore this idea in-depth. He has conceived a model of the mind as a bio-mind, which transmits/ receives and conceives / processes signals. These signals take the form of actual bio-electromagnetic signals. And just as there is with radio frequencies, there is a signal to noise ratio. Noise is anything that reduces or impairs signal. Also, there has to be a sensor in place or responding for a signal to be received in the first place. If there isn’t then it acts as noise or cannot be received at all and is discarded. When additional psi faculties are developed, what is happening is that the individual has bio-sensors for additional perceptions that are activated either naturally or deliberately. When these exist, they are often discounted because there is no matching meaning for what is sensed. And at least part of the meaning is derived from linguistics that are either so vague as to be meaningless and introduce noise (distortion / poor translation) or do not exist at all. Where either the sensor or the accompanying meaning translator is inactive or impaired in some way then the signal either doesn’t get through at all or it is perceived as noise and discarded or actively suppressed.
Ingo’s essay on signal to noise ratio is here: http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/RVandSignalToNoise.html
He also delves into the existence of additional senses which have been identified by scientists studying along bio-electromagnetic lines:
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/Your17Senses.html
There’s an entire series of essays exploring signal to noise at this URL:
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/1.html
Nice Maria.
I used to explain the S/N principle to my employees working on HelpDesks. 🙂
They were of course receiving some heavy signals from some users and some weak and garbled from others.
I then told them to try to creative a mental Noise-filter to try to get past the anger and frustration a typical user expresses to HD-staff, down to the REAL signal, what were their real problems …
I also tried to teach them to approach this with the idea that ” …the Noise is not about me but the user …”
Good advice. I worked this out for myself a few years ago to deal with my tinnitus. I had two anxieties. One was the noise. It was very distracting and bothered me and the other was an anxiety that I was losing my hearing. I did some little tests and determined that my hearing was ok and also that the tinnitus was not externally generated but was some type of electronic noise in my head. Relieved that my hearing was ok, I began “not listening” to the tinnitus noise. I do this the way anyone tunes out the background noise at a party in order to have a conversation with a single person. Anyway, this works very well for me.
Geir, this all-whilte blog design is a nice one. A clean and bright kind of look. And the icons over to the side sort of makes the comments connect with each other better. All these changes are enjoyable, even just for the idea of change. 🙂
haha S/N principle at work again — I don’t notice the blog changes ongoing. Am always surprised when anyone comments, then I have to dial in. But I like the white background as well.
Hi, everybody. I’ve been thinking lately (again :)) about how much I’ve learned and expanded because of all the discussions and interaction between the beings here. It isn’t just a matter of having picked up a lot of data (though I’m happy about that too), it’s that I notice a definite change in my outlook, in my worldview, how I see myself and others, and life. In short, there’s been a change in beingness that is evident to me myself. It literally surprises me, here and there noticing my responses to things and realizing that they’re different…
So since we’re having the Thanksgiving holiday this week here in the U.S. and since gratitude is a universal value, it occurred to me to express my thanks, my full-hearted gratefulness for my good fortune (and, just to note, this is like a session win as I type these words with tears in my eyes – ah, the magic of communication :)).
Thanks much to everyone! And to Providence. (ha ha! That word is a good example of something that “somehow” has more meaning.) The experience has been crazy and amazing – mainly amazing. 😉
Here are a couple of great quotes for you all:
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” –Thornton Wilder
“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.” –Native American Saying
And especially for the Americans:
“On Thanksgiving Day, all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment – halftime.” –Author Unknown
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Allow me to return the thanks to you and supply my own thanks to all the readers and contributors. You are an amazing bunch and my explorations are more valuable because of you. Happy Thanksgiving 😀
Geir, you are one class act.
It goes without saying that special thanks go to you. 🙂
I like the Times New Roman or booktype or whatever you call this style, it is easy for me to read.
Me too. It’s been maybe my best year ever. My family, my reconnection with old friends, my discovery of new friends, personal growth — yeah, best year ever so far. Thank you and wherever you are I hope you have a smooth and consistent Happy Thanksgiving Day. After that, back to crazy and amazing!
Wow, Chris, great to hear all that. And it’s consistent. 😉