I am perfectly aware that I have neglected writing an entry lately. To those who have reminded me of it, you have not really been ignored. I seem to be going through some sort of major change in the last six months or so.

For one thing I seem to have lost interest in some of the activities I have indulged in the past. I think one of the reasons this change is coming about simply has to do with my lack of contact with real people. I don't have the feedback I got in the past that seems necessary to keep certain interests going.

A couple of days ago I unsubbed from the Gospel of Thomas discussion list I participated in for 1-2 years. It just got to be boring. I subbed there in the first place because it seemed like a indirect way to deal with my early religious instruction.

Religion had been such an explosive topic for me since the onset of puberty, and I felt like it was time to deal with my anger about it. Being on that list really opened my eyes to a lot of what troubled me in my Southern Baptist upbringing. I "gnew" that I was being lied to. I sensed something was terribly amiss about what I was being told and forced to learn.

I learned a lot from the other members of the list. In the end, it was the total lack of moderator responsibility that caused me to let it go.

This suprised me a little. Freedom of Speech has allowed me to explore my interest in all sorts of areas. I never thought I would want to be on a moderated list, but the Gospel of Thomas list was not so much about freedom of speech as it was total anarchy. Some of the list members seemed more interested in the historical aspect of the early christians, and wrote volumes of weird, hoky stuff that had nothing to do with what the Gnostic Gospels were about.

The message was totally ignored in favor of the need of some of the members need to feel important about their own idea of scholarship. They are not scholars, but good old country boys who missed their calling.

One old guy who considered himself to be a true Catholic went on and on about church dogma that was the most translucent crap I had ever read. Then, there was his ex-girlfriend who was one of the most crude frenetic bitches I personally encountered in the various discussion groups I have subbed to. The moderators did kick her off the list a few times, but she would just change e-mail addresses and continue as if nothing happened. The dialogue just went away after the moderators got so lazy they let her stay on under one name or the other. All she was there for was to beg her old boyfriend to come back to her, and her remarks made it blatantly obvious why he never will. No blame.

Now I'm subbed to another group I have grown to enjoy writing with. I'm very impressed with the woman who moderates the list. She has a way with words that really hits the spot with me, and she keeps the fundamentalist fringe element at bay with what would appear to exist as very little effort. Truth is, the list members really don't know how much trouble she has to go to. It just doesn't. No telling what she has to go through off list.

She has a health problem that has caused her some problems lately and she was in the hospital for a while. Now she seems to be back in form somewhat and I'm really glad for her and for her admirers. I'm certainly one of those.

Our little town now has a Lowe's store that just opened. Gives us a little more choice about where we can shop. I have spent a couple of hours just browsing around since it opened to see what they've got to sell. It's really convenient to my house and will be easy to get things home if and when I buy them. I guess I don't have any good excuse not to do a little work on my rathole some call a house now, except for not having much money to spend on it. It doesn't matter. No one sees it but the people who love me and have decided to forgive me for being whatever it is that I am.

I've been trying to write an entry about how I adopted the personality I hide behind for some time now. It's not as easy as stream of consciousness writing. It took the better part of two hours for me to describe the baby crib I spent the first four and a half years I spent my childhood sleeping in. I hope to edit it down to a paragraph or two. That crib was the place I had numerous "first experiences" in. It was the place where lots of root ideas got drummed into my head. If I can get through that part of it, maybe the rest of what I'm attempting to describe will flow more easily.

The ritualistic magic associated with the creation of a
group mind calls for the thirteenth member of a formed group of twelve to be a stranger, in order to stimulate a
particular type of vibrational energy in the other twelve
members of the group stimulated by the presence of the stranger.

Suspicion generated by an outsider appears to raise the energy level of the whole group enough for the creation of a docetic personification of the group mind to bind them together in their group intent. A Messiah that would save the whole of them.

The thirteenth member, as a stranger in the group of twelve, acts as the rabble rouser to generate what ever energies rise to the top when suspicions of the stranger's true motives suddenly threatens betrayal of the group bond.

The word rabblerouser originated as the name of a design feature of rotating ovens mainly used to roast food products like coffee beans and peanuts. Peanut roasters are a fairly common sight at some public gatherings. The beans and peanuts, called the rabble, are placed inside a closed rotating barrel that slowly turns over a permanent source of controllable heat to
get the value added end product.

The design feature of this type of oven called the
rabblerouser is engineered to accomplish about the same results the agitator blades in a washing machine does. The agitator blades in a washing machine insure that the clothes being washed keep moving around inside the washer so that all parts of the clothing get equal exposure to the washing process.

In rotating ovens, products like coffee beans have a
tendency to slide along the inside surface of the rotating barrel which results in only one side of the bean getting fully roasted. The rouser is a bar or blade that is permanently attached to the inside wall of the barrel and acts as an obstacle for the sliding beans and agitates them so that all sides of the beans will receive optimal exposure to the heat source, and thus insuring an evenly roasted product.

Another description associated with the term rabblerouser identifies a person or persons who stirs other people up through agitation. In the old western movies some of these classical oaters were filmed in black and white, and featured mob scenes where a crowd of ordinarily good citizens would be brainwashed
into hanging the bad guy sitting in the jailhouse, before
the crooked local politicians set him scot free for bribe
money. The movies always seemed to feature the firebrands who whipped the townspeople into their murderous rage by indignantly and belligerently urging their followers to take the law into their own hands. The townspeople in these movies represented the rabble, and the firebrands who whipped them into a frenzy represented the action of the rabblerousers.


Every group appears to need an element of cohesiveness that defines the group purpose and defines the groups purpose. The rabblerousers put it all together and integrates aim that makes the mob tick. In rotating ovens it's the design feature called a rabblerouser that performs that function.

In dubious political situations, however, the results of rabblerousing can be unpredictable at best. Often enow, the end results of rabblerousing in the old western movies depended on the steely-blue careactor of the white-hatted Sheriff, and his trustworthy but sometime clumsy deputies.

Any gross miscalculations by the rabblerouser in regard to the expected response of the good guys can resolve to a shameful disintergration of the spirit of the group, and sometime a punch in the nose or worse for the rabblerouser's troubles. Such humiliation effectively puts the mob mentality genie back in the bottle and corks it, leaving the disenfranchised rabble to wander the world aimlessly like the lost and scattered tribes of the damned.

My experience in this arena leads me to think that to call this endeavor a "test" promulgates needless barriers to overcome in a somewhat nebulous situation.

The obstacle I see is being in this state without
recognizing the possibility of exercising volition. In deep
state, disconnected in some way from personality traits and the availability of memory in the regular way, that the type of memory accessed during the experience of the state is separate from our memories of the sensory experienced world of appearance (Whatever in hell THAT means?)

It's like shifting to the superconscious or global
perspective one moves to an undifferentiated awareness which is all-inclusive and everything is seen as oneself. Even if that unity exists perceptually as a collage of our rare moments, however obtained, in a different world.

It would seem as if the experimenters would be asking their subjects for specific data in that undifferentiated state. And if the experimenters themselves are unfamiliar with the unboundedness of the global state (which is hard for me to fathom since a part of us is there all the time.), then eliciting the specific response they desire, either yeah or nay, could present a helplessness that transforms into an inept haplessness, and eventually to an abandonment of
the integrity of their purpose in conducting the experiment in the first place.

The last exchanges Brian and I posted centered around my asking him some questions I hoped would bring a response that more clearly delineated his true intent in writing the things that he wrote. His responses really pleased me. I felt as though he answered me with deep sincerity, and though I suspect there is much more to be explored in
himself to come to completeness with how he really feels, I understood his earlier comments more succinctly than before. I like to ask a lot of leading questions, in any case, and I do so referencing the Golden Rule, because I want the other to ask me leading questions to get more lucid descriptions
in regard to my own experiences. Brian asked me a few
questions in his responses, but I felt his questions were
really his way of priming his own pump to come up with a more considered description of his true intent. I enjoyed having this exchange with Brian. Since we've
broken the ice with each other, I expect we can do each
other a great service without too much distraction to the group as a whole.

Back to the point I have run around in circles trying to get to. The real problem with the stated experiment is that the experimenters may not have enough familiarity with the state they are attempting to get the answers from. Like the license plate discussion about being able to recall something totally familiar, the number and letters we see on a regular basis, I said that I could get anybody to remember anybody else's license plate numbers if they had ever physically perceived them. That's because I have developed an ability to elicit the specific scenarios within another's experience field to bring their attention to the
information I will recover with them. It took me a lifetime of dealing with people in altered states, generally in hypnosis, to understand what has to be there to get them to understand they can act with volition in this state. It appears similar to getting things to happen in lucid dreaming. First and foremost, one has to become aware that they are indeed dreaming. Then, at the point of this realization, to realize that they can effect the outcomes witnessed in the dream process. That's asking a lot from oneself, especially at the onset.

The hypnosis I do with others amounts to a pre-entry
discussion about what we are attempting to accomplish by us entering state together. I don't force people to enter the state by trickery (Although I can and possess considerable resources to bring this to fruition.), the process I find most useful is just to facilitate them entering the trance state as openly and as consciously as possible in that moment, and then ask them questions about what they are experiencing as we go along. Then, as the trust and the bond
between us develops, they access the needed state pretty much on their own and tell me where they are at with it. It's not as if they suddenly become Chatty Cathys', I constantly ask them, "Tell me what you see.", "What's happening?" I attempt to keep the communication between us to what they tell me in response to my questions.

At this point, about all I help with is remind them of what we set out to do in this encounter. This is a very necessary thing to do. A person who enters this state of their own volition seems to have to release their awareness of their ability to make things happen in that state and so when they get to the place where they have all the tools they need to do work in this state, they forget why they went there and that they can make things happen. That's all I'm there for.
to ask them what they 'see' there, and to direct them to go ahead and prove to themselves that they can indeed exercise volition to accomplish their stated goals. In the past, I have taped our pre-entry discussion about what we want to happen when they are in state, and let their original purpose, as stated in their own voice, guide them to getting the results they want. If they get confused or stuck in their intent, then it's my ability to recognise this and put them back on their own chosen path once again that allows a
continuation of the flow.

In any case, however, the conscious awareness that they can act with volition in an undifferentiated global perspective is a tricky business. To merely fill out a few forms about what happened after their leaving their body, or to ask a prearranged question set of a hundred different people will not, in my opinion, get useful results. Each person who enters such states will create or maybe recreate from that undifferentiated perspective only that which will please the questioner, and usually just to get their approval so that they can feel that they have done right by God and man. The
data provided in this set and setting can appear unreliable and without achieving the desired end.

The real determinant is always the person who asks the experiencer for information regarding what they "saw" during the experience. Not only does this require a sensitivity of the condition of the experiencer and how they personally deal with being in a open-ended global state in which their regular reference points are not there to guide them, but to be able to ask them to describe what they do "see" around
them in a way that doesn't change the experience radically enough to form a reliable assessment of our bond. Like in dreams, the entire apperception of 'wot's sot before you' can change with lightening speed of the most instantaneous sort, and suddenly the experiencer is not dealing with the same environment the last question related to. The questioner has to be able to recognize the signs that this is going on, and abandon the previous effort with the same kind of immediacy displayed by the experiencer. Why bother?
It's gone. It's not that the abandoned scenario cannot be reapproached, but it's just a matter of timing. Attempting to get someone in a deep trance to switch horses in mainstream without understanding why they must forego that which confronts them in the immediacy of now seems to strain the rapport and can cause unintentional erosion of the bond between one and the other.

Just about every person I have hypnotized has told me of their own impetus that they felt like I was "there" with them, and that I am "seeing" the same things they are, except that I am relating to what they experience as if what exists in that state possesses a more differentiated pattern, and that my questions or directions for them to look at the "things" of that world is consistent with what they would have done if they could have only thought of doing it.

But, this is determined in mutual collaboration. between
friends as it were, and with the practice of patience, and open discussion of any arising obstacles, or the seeming distractions of unrelated, but joyous intercessions of recalled material serendipitously entering the picture (which can be interesting to both parties) . In such a test as has been described, the rapport necessary to ask each individual to look for the planted material in a useful way that will get the desired results of proving or disproving such things are possible cannot get done on an impersonal level of communication.

I think the problem with proving this stuff is that the
people who have the kind of experiences needed to elicit the information in a useful way, don't need the proof. I might be willing to bet you good money that I can elicit experiences you have had in the past, that made perfect sense in the specious present in which you experienced them, but have not been able to access said experiences again due to your not realizing in real time that you have the inherent ability to make it available to recall on your own. I think you realizing that you have forgotten more than many people ever gnew would be more convincing to you in a personal sense than any "test" ever created.

I'm getting complaints about not posting more often again. Sorry about that. I seem to be involved in some mysterious life changes that have left me wondering what's going on.

I suspect this new diet I have adapted bears some responsibility for what I'm feeling, or rather not feeling. I seem to have a lot more energy than usual and it's more difficult for me to sit still both physically and mentally to mull things over.

Recently, I downloaded a demo of a speed-reading program that I'm excited about. It's called AceReader Pro, and is the best program like this I have used. I have practiced the drills everyday for about a week now. I don't particularly like to do these drills, but it is something I think I owe myself to do.

The use of this program has pointed out very clearly that I can't read any faster than I can talk. I have the habit of subvocalizing as I read stuff, and these drills and games in the program are designed to help me get over or beyond doing this when I read, and the thing about subvocalizing is complicated by the fact that I read and think about what I'm reading at the same time, rather thna reading the material and then thinking about it. In a way, I suppose, I actually save time by reading and thinking at the same time because when I'm done reading about a subject, when I get done I'm through forever with it. I hardly ever read the same thing twice, because during my reading I consider as many relationships that already exists in my mind about the topic of my reading, and so when I get through reading, I've done everything I can do about it. Well, upon reflection, that may not be exactly true, because other life events do come up in such a way that it reminds me of what I've read previously, and I find myself re-organizing my data on the topic continually.

A couple of thoughts have come to me in regard to the possibility of my continuing to use this program and making any progress at all detaching my emotional connection to what I read. One of them is the possibility that I have the same habit of subvocalizing when I read people. Having an emotional connection to the world around me seems to be a big deal in my life. This could exist as my main way of making meaning of my relationship with the external sensory-perceived world. Learning to speed read could change or alter the way I perceive the sensory world considerably.

I have been surprised by the results of the reading comprehension tests that come with the program. Several times the program has more or less forced me to read faster than I could subvocalize. I was sure that upon these occasions I would not do well on the comprehension tests upon completion of the forced reading. I was wrong. The tests indicated I am comprehending the material, even without the emotional connection that subvocalizing gives me. I have scored 100% on several of the comprehension tests. This has made me feel a little more confident in what I'm attempting to accomplish by practicing these drills, and offers the possibility that my subvocalizing is totally unnecessary for me to understand the material. I also seem to be able to type a little faster. This is making me wonder if I can only type as fast as I can talk.

I have made a bargain with myself about this program. If I actually use the program every day and see any progress at all in my ability to read and comprehend faster, I will give it up and buy the program at the end of the thirty day trial period. It's only $50, and I say only because that's ten times less than most of the speed-reading programs I have tried before. Besides, it's the easiest to use of all the programs, and the most well-crafted program I've encountered. High quality software for a change. What's this world coming to?

Building a world that God can't enter.

The Genesis myth is interesting to goof on. Metaphorically it plays with loaded dice. I have been intrigued for some time now with some speculation offered recently by a woman who has spent a lot of time exploring the world view of the Gnostic sects in the early Christian startup.

She wrote that the scene in Genesis about the serpent and Adam and Eve, as perceived by the Gnostics, was that the serpent represented the docetic Christos that was sent to save the Earth from the demiurge, otherwise known as Jehovah, a nature god associated with volcanos, mountains, earthquakes, and thunderstorms with a temper to match.

The Gnostic sects, for the most part, seem to think when the spirit of the Christos entered the serpent to offer the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that would give Adam and Eve to power to be as creative equals with Jehovah, his famed temper came into play with a bang! No blame.

What was given to Adam and Eve was first shown in the serpent who could talk. In the beginning was the word. What made Adam and Eve able to live as gods was that by eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge they were imbued with the power of the word.

The entirity of modern civilization was built from use of the power of the word. Polarity as a tool of creativity. Oral tradition was created to express the difference in things both far and wide by categorizing and naming. It was enhanced by the invention of the written language. Mass distribution of the word became possible by the printing press. Further along, the invention of movies with color and sound brought the word to continuing adventures in multimedia, and is expanding exponentially by digitalization and algorithms customized to taste.

As equal creators to the nature god Jehovah we have constantly invaded his domain and built walls to shut him out of ours. Jehovah/Nature cannot enter the world we have created to escape his wrath. There are a lot of nature gods and goddesses. This condition leads me to crave, at the very least, a truce that would contain the possibility of complete peace.

I stayed up late waiting for the winds to begin galing.
Watched the late shows, all of them, and then when the wind didn't get to squally I went to bed.

I lay in bed for a while and then realized I was in a
serious discussion with myself about metaphors.

The thing about metaphors is that I didn't really understand what a metaphor was. Pre-NLP era. If someone used the term "mixed metaphor" I was really impressed. They must be geniuses. They were talking about mixed metaphors when I hadn't even figure out what a metaphor was.

It was only when I got involved with learning what I could about NLP that I began to get a grip on what metaphors were. I kept reading all these references to metaphors on NLPtalk and how useful they were to layer suggestion within, I decided to invest in buying a book featuring the skills required for using metaphor as a medium for waking hypnosis.

I don't remember the name of the author... maybe David something... but his book really opened my eyes about what a metaphor existed as. I got about halfway through the book and suddenly I got it. Not only did I finally understand what metaphor is, but understanding what people mean when they talk about metaphors cleared up what mixed-metaphors
are too. Now, I'm a genius too by my own definition. It just feels great to finally arrive.

When I first made a concentrated effort to create a metaphor that was designed to created the desired empression on the other I felt clumsy and inept. Attempting to interweave the goal of my metaphor into the elements of the story felt very heavy and awkward. It seemed to me that my subliminal efforts were hardly that at all, and worse, I felt translucent. As though even Willy the Waver saw right through me and spent most of the time he appeared to be patientlywaiting me out and letting me finish my spiel, he was figuring out what he was going to say to rain on my parade.

I sometimes thought that, but it never happened.

I knew my intent was translucent, but they didn't, and I
couldn't figure out why. It took me an amazingly long time to get the picture. To get to the place I needed to be to understand why they were not seeing through my attempts to make metaphors in the spur of the moment. They simply did not hear me when I invented my metaphors ad lib. I felt ignored and I hurt myself by resolving to emoting.

In each and every case they only heard what they thought I intended in the telling of it. They heard what they would intend if they told the same story. They saw the non-verbal cues as if they were giving them. They only saw in me and my metaphor what they thought was there, and that's what they acted like was so.

"And he grew bold this knight so bold, and round his heart a shadow... grew as he found no spot of ground by the nayme of El Dorado. " eap

This astounded me. I was free. My intent was invisible to them. I could say and do whatever I liked and they would still see only their own interpretation of my intent and behave as if what they interpreted as the truth of my intent was valid to act upon.

Even more astounding, especially when following the
realization I had been granted my most fervid wish and
prayer, to become invisible. They could not see me,
Irreducibly, I could not see them either, only myself in
them, and yet understand that we were both free of any responsibility to the other despite our mutual use of each other as mirrors. I mean, if you can't be used, what use are you?

I was free. The other was free. "Free at last, free at last, Great God Almighty...."

Even the fact that I was now free to create whatever crossed my mind in the continuum of the specious present, I continued to doubt whether my efforts were having any effect at all over in the other. After all, they were responding to their own images no matter how I attempted to influence their processes. How could I be sure my metaphors were making their mark with the other and affecting their decision-making process? Were the results I observed in my person created in the same manner? Was I fooling myself about fooling them?

About this time I realized it didn't matter. I was having so much fun fooling myself into believing my metaphors were getting the specific results I designed that it didn't
matter whether what I designed was the bird-in-hand or no. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

This arrogant attitude affected the way I looked at NLP. As things went further and I kept getting away with telling my metaphors for my reasons and imagining that I was getting the results I wanted by the telling of them that I decided enough was enough.

This tool was the magic elixir for me. It answered not only my prayers, but it answered my questioning self in it's pendantic quest to know why I was so naturally talented at telling exaggerated lies. I mean I can tell some whoppers. Hardly ever does anyone else believe them, but I can work myself up into a hysterical fervor juking about how I got them to do exactly what I wanted them to do despite the fact that I was a smoe from the the sticks.

Isn't that a funny thing about humans? My main influence in my attempts to learn how to become an actor, or so it seemed, was Edgar Loissin. He told me several times to give the idea of becoming an actor up and develop my talent for lying. He wanted me to become a writer. A man already famous for writing offered to pay my way to a writer's retreat to help
me gain the confidence to develop my style. I still didn't
get it. I didn't get it until I finally figured out that I
could get everything I ever desired if I could ever figure
out what a metaphor is.

Typically, and the wind has even died down now at three o'clook in the morning... waiting, waiting... I've always been a day late and dollar short. Why change now?

Years ago, back when I was doing a lot of rambling around the U.S., I was picked up while hitch-hiking by a young couple near El Paso, Texas. They asked me where I was going. I gave them an indefinite answer because I didn't really know or care, I was just rambling. I liked talking to the people who picked me up. They were always strangers to me and me to them. Strangers passing each other on the road of life.

This stranger to stranger situation brought some interesting conversations to the table. We seem to drift eventually to topics of a very delicate nature. I didn't know anybody they knew to tell their secrets to. They didn't know anybody that knew me to tell my secrets to. It was just the near-perfect dynamic to get a few things off our chests away from the people who thought they really knew us.

The guy driving the car told me they were going to
eventually end up in Boulder, Colorado, but that they were going to take the backroads to get there, and they had to stop at a commune a little north of Taos, New Mexico to pick up a female friend of theirs to give her a ride to Boulder.

This sounded perfect to me. It would allow me to see some of the backcountry in an area I had never explored previously.

We camped that night near some natural hot springs where hot water oozed out of the side of a cliff into a
tub-like depression someone had carved into the rocks below. It that was big enough for several people to use it like a hot tub, and that unique visit still exists as a wonderful memory for me.

Late the next day we arrived at the New Buffalo Commune. I was very impressed with the place. There were 20-30 people of mixed gender who lived there. This event happened back in the Hippie days and that's the kind of people who lived there. They were all young people and right away it appeared they were of the variety that practiced free love, and the those possibilities presented some pretty exciting images
to contemplate.

The building was composed of a series of adobe structures. The largest building was the main gathering place for the group, and other adobe buildings which were much smaller served as bedrooms for the inhabitants. They had a garden where they grew vegetables out in front of the main building.

When we drove up to this site there were some people working in the garden and others were laboring with creating a large adobe wall that looked like it was intended to be an extension of the main building. The commune painted a very idyllic setting. Lots of smiles and hugs between the inhabitants seemed to show evidence of a true comraderie between them.

We were greeted with those smiles and hugs when we got out of the car. The couple I rode with were well-known among these people and shouts of greeting met them from all around the commune. I was pretty much ignored for the most part, so I wandered into the main building to see what it looked like inside.

I found myself in awe of the work and planning that had gone into it. The ceiling was especially impressive. It was constructed of lodgepole pine poles about 4-6 inches in diameter and stripped of their bark had a polished sheen as they lay next to each other row after row, but they were place in a geometric design that was very appealing. My first thought went to how much work had been put into their careful placement to create the exotic design they displayed.

The ceiling had a smoke hole in the very center to allow
ventilation for the fire pit in the floor of the building
with seating carved into the dirt all around it. This was a large room. It was not square, but it could easily seat
maybe 50-75 people comfortably. There were unique niches all around the room where various objects seemed to be highlighted with natural light coming from a series of holes in the adobe. The total package took my breathe away. The aesthetic appeal of the room delighted me. So much work and hand labor had gone into it, and it showed in every direction I turned. There were specific holes in the wall designed to show certain stars at pivotal times of the year coordinated to the four seasons.

Later, I asked someone who designed this room and the commune itself. I was told that one particular couple originated it and guided it development over the first years, but they had left and no longer lived there. It shocked me somewhat that they could walk away from such beauty and hard work.

The next morning brought an answer with the arrival of some new people to the commune. A young family composed of a couple with two kids. They had been in correspondence with the group about coming there to live. They came in the standard transportation of the time, a gaily painted Volkswagon van loaded to the gills with their possessions. Immediately, several of the inhabitants started poking through their stuff and having a good old time arguing about who was going to get what. I was a little amazed by this scavenger-like activity, and so I asked the guy I rode in with what was going on.

He told me that the people who came to the commune had to contribute all their possessions to the group in order to be part of it. That was the deal. The new couple appeared somewhat disconcerted by the scramble for their stuff, but said nothing. Earlier I had asked my host how the people there got food and drink. Coming from a agricultural background t was obvious the small garden would not provide
nearly enough to support this many people. He told me they got help from county welfare, foodstamps, and other charitable organizations.

Mostly, he said, they lived off the money and possessions of the new arrivals. This appeared to be the reason the people who originated the commune had left it to the scavengers. Their idealism had been destroyed by such evidence of the dark side of human nature. The new people arrived with such high hope and deluded idealism, and later moved on, poorer,
but hopefully wiser for the experience.

I was living up in New Jersey with the notion of becoming a professional actor. I saw an advertisement in the newspaper about a hypnosis school in Irvington, NJ, which was just a few miles from where I lived. I decided to take the offered course that met a coupla nights a week for 18 weeks. It was operated by a guy named Harry Aarons. I was 24 years old.

Next month that will have been forty years ago. During the entire time I attended his classes I didn't think I was going into state. Typical... eh? The event of graduation was
significant. The guest speaker was Milton Erickson. I didn't know anything about him. I thought he had been invited to speak as a kindness to an old man who used to be somebody. I had the youthful impression that Harry was indulging him in recognition of
his being the founder of the Ethical Hypnosis Association, and that he had probably long since passed his usefulness. Stupid boy!

When he arrived at the Center he came in walking with two walking canes. It was obvious that his walking was a real struggle for him. I empathized with him immediately. He had the kindest eyes I thought I had ever seen. I associated him with my maternal grandfather. When he got to the front of the class they sat him in his wheelchair. Harry went through the opening ceremony with his usual aplomb. I didn't particularly like Harry. He was very forceful and that antagonized my problem with authority figures at that time of my life.

Dr. Erickson just sat there with a little smile on his face until he was introduced. Considering the obvious struggle he had walking I was surprised when he stood up to talk to us. He talked about ethics a lot. This irritated me somewhat. I was young, dumb, and full of cum, and definitely not in the mood for all this ethics jibberjabber. He talked like my father with his penchant for Ideals. I didn't wanna hear this ethics stuff from this half-dead old man, so I went through the motions of listening politely. Presently, I realize that I was deep in a somnambulistic state, but at the time I considered myself to be necessarily tolerant just to get through this ritual.

Harry had told us before hand that he was teaching us Ericksonian Hypnosis. This had no meaning to me. I didn't even connect Ericksonian Hypnosis with this old man standing, with great difficulty, before us. So, when he spoke of using his own brand of hypnosis, I didn't realize how concerned he was that we do so from an ethical point of view. Can you imagine his concern that this variegated group of 23 students was going to go out into the world in his nayme? We were all totally under his spell by this time.

In addition to his "talk", he called each of us up to the front of the class to give us our certificates of completion and a formal letter that made us associate members of the Ethical Hypnosis Association, and talked to each of us for three or four minutes individually. It appeared as if he knew us all. I figured Harry must have filled him in on us previously. I have no recall of what he said to me. I do remember he looked straight into my eyes as he talked to me.

I wrote earlier that he had the kindest eyes I had ever witnessed. While this impression has remained with me all these years later, he was not a particularly "nice" personality. He spoke softly, but very directly with absolute confidence in what he had to say. His word was unquestionable.

When we finished with the graduation ceremony, the graduating students and about twenty former students were invited into another room the visitors were not allowed to attend. Erickson spoke further for about 20 minutes. Afterwards, Harry and he gave a demonstration of non-verbal hypnosis. Then we went back into the main room and had
refreshments and chatted it up for a while and went our own separate ways.

It was years before I realized how drastically that one night changed my life. I came out of this encounter with more ethical consideration than I really felt I wanted or needed. The membership in the Association allowed us to open our own hypnosis business, and offered us protection if we got hassled by those who found such activity objectionable. I went through the motions of opening such a business later, but found I was not interested in or even very qualified to run a business. Except for using hypnosis with friends for non-therapuedic purposes hypnosis got put on the back burner until I read Frogs Into Princes.

I stumbled across this book in the local community college library while searching for books on hypnosis. I was fascinated by the notion of providing myself with the options for self-communication described in the book where it talked about "parts" having conversations with each other and the way NLP provided a negotiation stance in this regard.

Even more interesting was learning that Bandler and Grinder had modeled Erickson. It took me a while to recognize their descriptions were about this old man I thought I had pretty much ignored and figured I had long since put behind me. It was only upon reading Frogs that I realized what had happened in New Jersey all those years ago.
When I figured out that I had fooled myself about his competency, after all, Frogs came out twenty years after I met Erickson, all those episodes of moroseness and self doubt after the few hours I had spent with him became more clear. Things that had happened after our encounter revealed how deeply I had been moved by the power of his suggestions.

I have always been pretty much of an empath and seemed to "gnow" things I couldn't consciously access the source for. Previous to Erickson I was fairly belligerent and defensive when people questioned my sources for saying some of the things I said. Besides that, I was an inveterate liar. My "lying" was not really all that harmful to others, it was mostly a tendency to exaggerate my experiences in life to give the impression that I was far more knowing and much more experienced and wise than I really was, and it was me that suffered the humiliation of my own translucency. This isn't all that unusual for a young man, but I took it to unbelievable extremes and it was obvious that no such experience existed. I came by it fairly naturally, my mother and father did the same thing during my formative years. They were both school teachers, and I was constantly exposed to the way they treated others with deference to their face, and then I heard what they really thought about those people at home. I thought that creating a false image of self-esteem for other people's eyes for my own benefit was just what people in general did in public.

In all of my life there are not very many
who would give all they have
just to love me a while,
and those who have given
have just taken my misery,
and later they found out
they did so in vain.
Because the memories they started
didn't go when they parted and
I felt like I wasn't to blame.
But the answer don't matter
despite all the questions,
their loving still hoped me'
to conquer my pain.

Suddenly, after my confrontation with Erickson, with all his strong suggestions about ethics, I was not comfortable in the least with my tendency to exaggerate... to lie... and I eventually suffered a lot of humiliation in excising this habit from my daily affairs. I didn't know why I was confronting myself in this way. After all, a little white lie never hurt anybody, right?

The only way I knew how to stop lying and start telling the truth or refrain from making
overly exaggerated claims was to stop myself in the middle of one of my grandiose stories, and admit to my listeners that I had gone over the top, and to offer them a more accurate accessment of what really did or did not happen. Generally, this act of contrition was not what people wanted to hear. They seem to have preferred the lies even though it appeared obvious to them that I was not being straight with them. For reasons I could not fathom it was extremely important to me.

I was possessed of other personality attributes that come into conflict with Erickson's ethical considerations that left me conflicted. Since I couldn't figure out why I kept betraying myself in these areas I didn't know how to deal with what was happening. I became very depressed for a good number of years. I literally thought I was going crazy, and I received a lot of support for that notion from others. They appeared to rather enjoy me making a fool of myself.

I began therapy after I got out of the Navy and went back to school. I remained in therapy for years. I felt as if I got the most benefit from the psychologist I was seeing, but in typical fashion arrogantly suspected that a person of my depth needed to see a full-blown psychiatrist to really get to the bottom of my problems. I saw a psychiatrist at Duke University Hospital for a while, and then saw the error of my ways. I went back to the psychologist who didn't really care about his prestige or the money he was getting.

When I read Frogs, I began to understand what had happened or what might have happened during my encounter with Harry Aarons and Milton Erickson. I became intensely desirous of getting involved with NLP to explore how this earlier event with those two might have been responsible for not knowing why I was in conflict with the way I was raised and own own personality quirks. I seemed quite aware that the "high ideals" my father beat me into submission to was certainly a contributing factor. I read Frogs just furing the year after my father died.

I had moved in with my mother to help her with his dying. My father was nearly 88 years old, and my mother was 84, and she simply couldn't handle his situation physically. He was
bedridden and had been for a few years. He had to be rolled over to prevent bed sores every two hours and my old mother simply could not make it happen. He died early one morning, and although we had reached some degree of peace between us during the last year of his life, especially during my stay there in the last three weeks, when he died of pneumonia I reached to feel his forehead to see if he was really dead for sure. There was not a moment of his life that I did not live in fear of him, even when he got old and feeble and I was a strapping six foot tall and boxed at two hundred fifteen pounds. I thought I hated him. At his funeral I was the only one who openly wept including my mother. It amazes me how my attitude has changed since his death. The man had beaten me with regularity and severely enough for doctor's visits until I got big enough to stop him. Presently, I feel and experience deep remorse for the way I treated him. Despite the farce that my life has been, he was always there for me, and supported me in any way he could despite the fact that I sometimes publically ridiculed him in front of those who held him in deep respect. I have let a lot of people down who have been foolish enough to love me. No mas. I don't let people love me anymore. It's just too dangerous for their own sake. The ones who are already stuck there know fully well the price they have paid, and many regret the fact that they can't stop themselves from loving me anyway. Geez! Where did that come from? Writing! I never know what's gonna come from my fingers. I hope they don't read this blog. I visited my father's grave just yesterday. He's still in there. I'm pretty sure he won't read it.

There was another factor that come into play with this. I got a herniated disk from an auto accident up in Nebraska that had to be operated on during this same time. I was in extreme pain myself. The operation was totally successful and my recouperation was complete, but at that time, it was the only extended pain I have ever experienced. Good genes. My father never experienced any pain during his demise. He finally died from what the Home Nurse called "the old people's friend". I was the person who decided not to stop the pneumonia. He had informed me earlier to let him go. I obeyed him.

When my father died, my mother did not fare well. She fell on the church steps and ended up in the hospital herself, and her physician would not tolerate her living alone. I was already living there, even though I owned my own house, and I was the only single sibling, so I stayed with her for another two and a half years so she would not have to go to a rest home. It was like living with an Alzheimer's patient. The situation just about drove me really crazy. During one of her moments of forgetfulness she mistook me for her husband. She called me Bill, and told me exactly what she thought of their wayward son. I could not abide staying with her for very long after that. My youngest brother got me a job as an engineer where he was working. My older sister, the responsible one, found a companion to live with her, and I moved back in my house and joyfully went back to work. I avoid seeing my mother if at all possible. I have not been back to her house to visit in a long time now. She even lied to me. My father tried to tell me about her. I call HIM a liar. Much regret. He always told me I just wouldn't listen. Even in death he proved himself to be correct. Why could I have not known when he was alive so that I could tell him and ask his forgiveness. Why could he have not asked for mine? I guess we just didn't have it in ourselves to be open with each other.

I saved the money from my unemployment check to take Practitioner's training. I went to Wisconsin to study with Rex and Carol Sykes. I learned a lot from them, but I did not particularly care for Rex personally. He didn't do anything out of the way to merit my discomfort, and it did not interfere with the studies. I have always felt an unwavering need when I'm through with a teacher to kill the Buddha, and I found ways to kill Rex and Carol's influence with me by the by. Over the next few years I studied with Carmine down in Atlanta by attending three or four of his weekend seminars. After I thought I had gotten as much from him as was possessed growth potential, I killed his influence off too. I attended Bandler's DHE course, and never had any desire to return after that. However, I did not kill his influence for some reason, so I guess I figure he still has something to teach me. I was invited to attend a couple of other seminars for free while paying my own expenses by a couple of trainers I met and grew to respect due to my participation on NLPtalk, and for some reason I'm still open to those folks too. I doubt very seriousl if they remember me during the interim. Humility has come hard for me. even while gnowing through painful experience that modesty is the art of power.

I doubt if I will return to more NLP training sessions. I retired at sixty two to get a small check to live on. It's very difficult for me to tolerate the presence of others. By choice, I keep very few friends who I let visit. I'm not using NLP for any other purpose than my own personal life now. I move into my patter during normal conversation and do what I think will help without resorting to formalities or asking for recompense. I would rather do without or even die unwisely than to enter the public domain for any reason. I am retired from public work now, and have settled into a rigidly reclusive lifestyle except for what
communicating I do over the internet. One friend I have learned to feel comfortable around visited me briefly last night, we seem to fall into some very animated and interesting conversations every time we find ourselves in each other's company. He is the only real for sure genius of great, seemingly unlimited intellectual reach I have had the privilege of being friends with for over a few years, he is even more brilliant than he realizes, I think, and when he left my house we shook hands. His hand was the only other human I have touched for weeks. I have an old friend I've known for thirty years that is much more intelligent than I, especially in regard to personal insight and practicality, I have no idea why he doesn't ignore me and go his own way after spitting in my face. We lead totally different lives, and I am sure it has been embarrassing more than once to openly claim me as his dear friend. But, he's steady as the good earth, and I feel fairly sure he would welcome me in his house if I found myself in dire straits.

I have another friend who is Native American. It's taken a good twenty years to convince him of his inborn leadership and profound quickness. In the hypnosis sessions we have shared together he has met his true warrior nature by nayme, and he has carried me to meet his eternal teacher who sits in the cave with the blue stone light in a totally foreign universe light years away. He went from working in a factory on the assembly line to teaching at a couple of community colleges and owning a growing collection of rental units.

I have another friend who doesn't know we are friends yet. It's inevitable though. He has no where else to turn. He is not a youngush man. He has tried to let others inside only for them to find them fearful of such astounding profundity. His depth of understanding is such that even trying to meet them halfway puts their minds in shadowy places they are unable to bear.

Although I'm fairly sure I am playing the fool with myself, and probably it's some sort of hold-over from the days of my youthful exaggerations, I have the distinct impression that no one can come to my house without my tacit agreement. The front door is wide open whether I am at home or no. I have a telephone, but it's unplugged. I use the connection for the internet. I have made exactly three telephone calls n the last two years. I don't need either medium to communicate instantly with anyone I choose, but they do. Why would they not?

Finally, I think I have resolved the mystery of what happened during my encounter with Erickson. I feel like I understand what happened. I am not unhappy about running into him, on the contrary, he probably affected my life in those two hours we were in each other's company with others than any other person I've met. I was just way too young and too naive to understand the implications of my actions. I do feel that I could have been better informed about the possible consequences of what might transpire from that time, and yet it seems consistent with the rest of my life such that he saying "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." might aptly stand as the perfect description of how I conduct my affairs. Act first, then try to figure out what happened. I expect death to result from doing things this way, and then I'll have eternity to figure out my final act of defiance. No
blame.

I looked up the term "fool" in my unabridged. One of the definitions is that of a court jester. Many of us have seen movies or plays where this careactor appears dressed in a classical uniform with the multicolored clothing and the hat with the top that droops.

Usually it is someone who is hired to break the monotony of formal proceedings and who allows the assemblage to see the ridiculousness of attempting to solve problems with the same old formulae that have worked in the past. Hopefully without the Queen drawing herself up into a solemn-faced majestic posture and declaring "We are not amused. Off with his head!"

During the last few years of television it appears that stand-up comedians seem to be prolific in getting jobs as serious actors. Many sit-coms use comedians as actors for leading roles. The comedians themselves suggest that when they are not onstage they are tragic figures who have learned to play the fool.

That's an interesting expression, "Playing the fool."

Just now I went downstairs to make my morning coffee and get on my exercise machine for a while. While I was working away counting repetitions I suddenly saw an image of my father from a long time ago when I was a little boy. He was participating in a student-faculty game, and he had stuffed a pillow under his shirt and was "cutting the fool" out on the basketball court. The crowd went wild to see this normally serious, very dignified man playing the part of a buffoon. In those moments he became endearing to them.

Of course, the court jester is imitating someone his audience recognizes all too well. Both in the people around them and in themselves. Have we all not taken ourselves too seriously on some occasion without recognizing what other people readily see?

If on such occasions a person points out our behavior as caricature to everyone present, do we not feel humiliated to the point of despair when they laugh uproariously at our expense? In a best case scenario we recognize we have gone over the top of believability and laugh with them. At worst, we take offense and stalk off in some indignant fashion to plot the offender's murder most foul.

They made us look like an idiot when we sought to be seen as wise. Idiotic behavior does exist or there would be nothing to compare such behavior with. There are people who constantly take themselves seriously without realizing the inappropriateness of their grandioso posturing.

I have done this. I have done that. Within the context of the surroundings I have found myself throughout my life I have played every role possible. Sometime deliberately, and other times without a clue.

Once, many years ago, when I was living in Key West, Florida a group of New York City emigres decided to put together an amateur theater. They were for the most part homosexual men who had been active in that cities theater crowd, and the plays they wanted to present had a gay theme. To me this was a direct challenge to my image of myself as an actor. I decided to audition for a part that was very "Nelly". That is, the role required an effeminate careactor. The directors of the group actually let me read for the part. I'm pretty sure they knew beforehand what they were in store for. I do not exhibit this type of behavior very well, but I had been around such people a lot, and I thought I would be able to pull it off. They laughed their heads off! It was the silliest thing I had ever tried to do in the theater. I slithered out of there feeling deeply disgusted with myself for ever thinking I could fool the professionals.

I seem sure there have been times I didn't even catch on that I was being mocked for acting foolish. On these occasions, the laughter and ridicule would suddenly die down, and be replaced with an awkward silence, and yet, there I stood, still yammering on, as if something I had not witnessed was the cause of their laughter. Why would they not then begin to entertain serious doubts of my intellectual competence? No blame. I can be a very gullible person.

My gullibility appears to exist as the bottom line of how I learn things. With some unfamiliar activities where I have never witnessed the actual performance of some rarely demonstrated, incredibly intricate routines, I may play the fool over and over again. Whatever humility I may possess springs directly from humiliation. Modesty is the art of power.

Yes, I am a fool. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. ;-)

"The illusion is the lesson itself."

What a strange thing to write. I thought I knew exactly what I pretended to when writing what I wrote. Yet, to write about what I wrote in lieu of writing about what I would have written in it's stead, fairly exudes Befuddlement!

I like pretending as much or more than the next person. Pretending stuff is just the way I dream it 'should' be... just for the hell of it... and it appears soothing to my soul. It seemed to have taken a long time to realize that the soothing I did for my soul's sake placed an unwitting price on my head. I made the deal ignoring the fleeting peripheral awareness that I was not really willing to pay the price embedded within my treasured ignorance. Soon, I would learn more about learning, and the price exacted from learning that learning is a sham.

In the past, I endeavored to pretend that what I had been taught to think was real, when it really wasn't, no matter the price. Like many kids I was deadly serious about learning whatever it took to get me on my own, and often, my people did not support what I thought was real. Still don't. No blame.

Both of my parents were school teachers. It didn't take forever to learn that learning was a sham. Learning reeks of political indoctrination, unwittingly or no, that told me culturally the politically expedient way to conduct my personal affairs, in order to live in peace and good will. Follow the party line. Render unto Jesus. And you'll get a gold watch and a respectable headstone.

This boilerplate hysteronics is served up sereptitiously with a perpetual occult price to pay to please it's greedy pundits. I pompously pretended all this rhetorical folderol was true for a mere pat on my head and the stars and stripes up my butt, All during this time I am pretending to some exotic bookish wisdom while selling my soul at the price of slave labor.

I never openly confronted the unconscious mourning of the loss of my innocence until it nearly crushed me behind my mask of pretentions. How could I have knowned? I only saw my mask in the mirror on the wall.

Pretending eventually pounded me senseless. I would later ignore my pretentions as the price I paid for learning how to get laid. Now that I'm old and staid, my memories of those escapades exists as an old friend's way of showing me how the game is played. Hopefully to watch enraptured while muttering "How could I have been so courageous... and survived so long?"

Time to go play my flute. I play a lot of nursery rhyme songs these days. Rewriting my life includes rearranging the music. Just variation on theme. I have no elaborate scheme to whack away the sands of time any faster than comes by the seat of my pants.

Digital. It is being discovered that the universe is digitally oriented. I read a couple of articles on a new development in the communications and networking arena. It seems as if photons are composed of two parts. One with a positive spin and the other with a negative spin. This yin-yang composition allows for binary encodement such that communication using this technology would mean instance communication with no latency problems.

Employing this technology, the transfer of info would be instantaneous in any part of the known universe. The machinery needed to make this happen already exists. Bell Laboratories are already on top of it and have built prototypes that work. The possibility for instant real time networking threatens monumental overload. Everybody would know everything in the immediacy of it's occurrence. This is based on the theory that while the speed of light may experience certain restraints, the speed at which photons communicate cannot be measured, but is estimated to exist magnitudes faster than the speed of light itself.

Overload? Actually, I think there is a part of each of us that can access everything all at once in total rapture. Once experienced, such an event might pose real problems for some. In my case, the experience of such momentous occasions dictated how I lived my life. I wanted these moments of enrapturement to be of constant presence to the
exclusion of other influences. I became ecstasy's bitch. There was not another soul on earth's whose value to me exceeded my desire to re-experience the ecstasy I
experienced in certain moments of pure joy. Such is not exactly and upbeat social strategy. No blame.

I followed every clue... even rumors... to the exclusion of excellent advice to the contrary. I refused to allow someone else's conscience be my guide for my personal behavior, Alone, however, I was searching a huge dark warehouse with a small penlight. I needed more light.

I've just finished reading a series of articles on Dark Matter on information websites that explained such stuff, They say 95% of the universe is filled with Dark Matter. Earth is considered Dark Matter because it doesn't produce it's own light that present technology can detect from far away. Things like neutrinos don't matter. Literally. They are barely atomic. Their weight is so minimal they're barely considered matter at all.

With a universe almost overflowing with Dark Matter I may have to negotiate this dark universe with the little light I do possess. It's so small. Barely a point of awareness. Availing myself of it's presence more readily appears to require that I let go of even more of the false security of what I think matters. Will it ever end? Do I have to be-co-me a neutrino... again? Man... whatta drag! I was doing so well...

I remember one event that made me ecstatically happy. I literally mean ecstatic. I was completely enraptured by this event for about three days.

I visited my youngest brother in California. He was living in Riverside with his bride from England. I was not his only guest. His English bride had taken in a fellow Englander. An old man who had been in a fight with his brother who was even older. They were both in their eighties. I was completely fascinated by this old man. The brothers had come to the U.S. to help build
Silskorski's(?sp) first helicopter prototype.

He had certain habits he indulged on a daily basis. He got up each day and dressed in a suit and tie, went out to the front porch, sat in a straight back chair and lit a long cigar, and silently smoked it while he stared off
into space smiling.

I was writing poetry during that phase of my life. I finally understood why he did when I wrote:

I knew an old man with a smile on his face,
and he would sit all day in his special place,
and he would wait for the paper
that would come to the door about three.
Then, he would read that paper
until he read it clear through,
because he knowed if he read it,
then it must be true,
and the things that he saw in his mind
was not a dream.

Growing old ain't half bad,
but in getting old it get hard to see,
but if yo' light shines bright
in the middle of the night,
and you talk to the dwarves
and then to Snow White,
then you'll smile all the while
and call out "Jubilee!"

Jubilee, jubilee...
There are none so blind
as those who just won't see.
You can turn to the left
or you can turn to the right
or you can turn to the Lord
in yo' little white light,
and then you'll smile all the while,
and call out Jubilee.

After I wrote the above I created some music to accompany it so I could play my guitar and sing it in the coffee houses and bars I often sang in those days. I sang it to a kind of jumpy tune and it always brought me the most applause and seemed to get people excited. The problem was that I only had the one verse and dual choruses. It didn't last long enough.

However, I knew from experience that once a poem like this came to me and ended like this. I had never been able to write more later. It was almost like the very idea of adding more later was jinxed.

I had been on the road bumming around the country for about two years after that occasion. I lived as a beggar and slept where I could at night. That is, if I could find a safe place to sleep. Many times I existed in a huge pool of fatigue and hallucinations. I stopped by my parent's house to see them, and to stay a few days to rest up.

I didn't like to go there even though I was always welcome. It was very difficult to explain why I was doing what I was doing to them. It was even more difficult for them to understand why their oldest son was living a homeless lifestyle, and exposing himself to the dangers of road life year after year. My "go ye therefore" explanations fell on deaf ears.

On about the third day after I had caught up on my sleep I began to play my guitar and sing. I sang the song Jubilee. While I was playing and singing I began to see the next verse in the peripheries of my consciousness. I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and started writing. What I wrote perfectly matched the first verse.

I couldn't believe it. This had never happened to me before. Everything about it was "right" for me. I played it over and over until the two verses became one. For me it was a miracle. I found myself delighted beyond measure. I couldn't believe my good fortune. I wanted to share it with others. My mother's response was, "Yeah, yeah... that's nice." and she went back to playing Solitaire. Nobody knew what I had done but me.

It didn't matter. I was in heaven. I giggled and laughed and carried on like the madman everyone thought I was. I existed in a pale white light that surrounded me everywhere I went. If I fell from this ecstasy, all I had to do was just repeat the words and it all came back again. No one expected less from me. We all knew I was insane anyway. Why would I not act like it? It was my own secret that no one else could share in. Only after about three days did it come to the place where just reciting those words did not immediately bring about great joy of inestimable value.

That smiling old man he turned to me,
and said, "Son, don't you know
that this life ain't free,
that you pay for the right to call yo'self a man.
Now,a man is a vessel of the the Lord up above,
and he sends down his message on the wings of a dove,
And you've gotta clear yo' mind
just to sit and understand.
Then time will greet you with a smile,
and faith will walk that extra mile.
You can forget all the things
that make you fret and fuss
as you plot and you plan,
and you whine and you cuss.
Give it all to the Lord
as you call out Jubilee."

I have found some interesting reading at the website on Division Theory. It is Peter Novac's ideas about what happens when we die that intrigues me presently. His notion that unless we are able to unite the two different minds prior to death the two separate realities will split and go their own way seems to resonate with my experience in visions and dreams. He says that the conscious mind goes off and reincarnates to begin a new life fits with how many of the old religious documents describe what happens, but it is what happens with the subconscious mind, rift with all the memories and emotions of the past life, that really makes sense to me.

His website (divisiontheory.com) says, to the best of my understanding, that the unconscious mind, without the guidance of the logic and reason of the conscious mind, makes eternal judgement of the contents of it's memories, and if the judgement of it's eternal life review finds those life memories to be negative, then it suffers nightmarish emotional results forever. If, on the other hand, it finds the lifetime memories good, then it lives in a state of overwhelming ecstasy forever.

This seems to find equanimity with the various descriptions of heaven and hell put forth by the several religious dogmas espoused by the mahjor world religions.

It also catches my attention because of what I experienced in my "remembering vision" and in my dreamtime. I have had dreams of exceedingly horrific nightmares where catastrophe strikes suddenly and with overwhelming responses of sorrow and dispair, as well as dreams of ecstasy beyond belief or understanding.

To think that while the conscious mind goes off without the advantage of the memory of it's former life, or lives to create a new life with new memories, yet somehow haunted by their absence in the new life, appeals to what I perceive in the world around me. Many spiritual seekers, including myself, seem to spend a lifetime looking for something that has been lost without gnowing what that something really is.

The old religious documents suggest a way out of this dilemma, and that way out is to unite the conscious and unconscious mind during the present lifetime. So, how can this phenomena take place? By bringing what is unconscious into consciousness.

I've asked myself what needs to be there for this to happen. I would not state with any certainty that I know it's possible, but it does seem like doing that has been the focus of my efforts for as long as I can remember.

For about the last decade I have come to realize that what I have previously accepted as "knowledge" is the barrier causes the separation. Knowledge, in my estimation, is generally thought of as
being that information useful to conducting one's affairs in the sensory perceived world. Information about how to survive physically, mentally, and socially in a world full of creatures quite ready and willing to put an end to one's options to do as they please. It seems similar to an attack on what some call free will. And yet, I suspect that free will, whatever the expression describes, applied for survival purposes is a deception at best. Such a struggle is a misuse of this faculty. A more revealing interpretation of this expression might be labeled intent.

If it is one's intent to survive at any cost and to prevail in the struggle of daily life, then such an effort will bring about the resultant splitting of the two separate minds at death. If one's intent is to achieve unity between the two minds prior to death, then the faculty of intent or freewill gets focussed to it's best use.

> > 2.) Souls are not perfect. Souls incarnate into personalities that reflect their awareness. Yes, they learn, but a soul may choose to be a thug over the course of many lifetimes.

I distinctly remember creating both the body and the persona. I remember making myself into a frog to attempt to jump outta here. That didn't work, so I left my frog creation to it's own devices, it hopped off into the bushes (which me and my kind also created), and then I went about making myself into a rabbit. That nay-me-less rabbit could jump higher than a frog, but it's usefulness in escaping back out into my previous condition of bouncing around the universe in perfect ecstasy, found ano more utilization in the frog than in the rabbit. So, I abandoned the rabbit to it's own instincts (okay, I might have stayed in the frog longer than it might have taken some of the others), and eventually made myself into a kangaroo (a bigger rabbit), with stronger hind legs that could jump much higher than the frog or the rabbit. But, alas, no cigar. I found myself sorely disappointed to finally realize I would probably not be able to develop the perfect organic vehicle to jump back in hyperspace. I left the kangaroo, it hopped off, sporting a weird grin as if to suggest that it had unwittingly conned me into providing it with a body without a soul that was not responsible for any blame.

I made myself into a monkey and tried to climb outta here. I made made myself into a plethora of flying creatures to attempt to fly outta here and get back to my beloved sojourn. These creatures that myself or others like me created (by shamanly imitating each other mindlessly), and filled the earth and the skies with iterations of creatures that are still here. Shamelessly reminding me of my inadequacies to get away clean.

Then one day something oddly final happened. Like the stroke of a fiery sword, all forms of life including the created and the creators got split in half, and the grand effort to create the perfect form that would elevate us all back into the open-ness of space somehow got lost in the shuffle of our collective effort to find our other half. I call that incomparable event the Great Schizm when I attempt to say what I saw.

All the resourcefulness, all the ingenuity that we used to create the perfect vehicle got applied to the sudden and unceasing seeking of the other, and that's when the territorializing that we had engendered into the previous experiments came into play.

They (the other than human creatures) began making trouble for us. By now we had made ourselves into the most streamlined soul searchers ever imaginated, with the ability to conceive of and make tools to extend our reach and our search for the other. But, we could not or would not take the ti-me to go back in and reverse the adverse traits of our creations, all our time was taken up in searching for our missing soul mates, and attempting to make ourselves whole by trickery and deception. So, when we had trouble with the animals challenging us with their parodied territorial imperative, we just started killing them, and we're killing them still. No blame. Tasty!

The territorializing instinct didn't end with the creation of our not-so-useful experiments, but extended to the advanced animals we had made ourselves into as the best of the best, later called homo sapiens, among other archetypical typecastings. Territoriality had became the chief reason for wars. now running rampant among humans themselves. I remember the very beginning of wars, although I think I may have copped the scene more recently from Space Odyssey 2001. You gnow, the ape-man thing with the sticks and the invention of weapons? Yeah well, I liked that scene, it was very close to the original.

After that came your spears, your bows, your arrows, and some guy named Arthur got crowned King of England because he discovered how to make iron outta rocks. The Limies only had bronze weapons up until Arthur came along, and they were supremely disadvantaged in their struggle against invaders. True, it's all hidden in metaphor and fairy tales now, but he really got the idea from spying on some really secretive dudes in Italy where he was a slave. Recalling the red sandstone found in the fens and swamps around his native home, he realized they were equivalent to what the Romans used. He called his first iron sword Excalibur, it may have sprung from the red sandstone found in swamps because the idea for it came from a dream about some chick in a pond. When asked how he came into the possession of Excalibur and got to be King, he told everybody he had pulled it out of a rock, which, in a way, he did. Businessmen are never satisfied with becoming rich, they wanna RULE! Stupid assholes, they never learn that we dreamed them up, and all it takes to bring them down is to wake them up rather rudely. They simply can't handle the truth. Okay, okay, some of them can handle the truth. They remember too.

After the discovery of gunpowder, by another dreamer who spent most of his time sitting around on his ass, the war thing really got on a role, and wholesale slaughter became possible. I saw the whole thing from it's inception to the very day this vision came to me in the dining room of some stranger's house. I saw my entire history from the time I got tricked into coming here under the guise of entertainment for a nomadic star wanderer (It was all them purty colors that did it). Until my serendipitous, time-distorted remembering vision, the transformations were too fast to mull upon the particulars, but when I got outside my personality limits, the incredible became mundane.

All the way from one-cell amoeba-like creatures to the formulation of humans... and beyond. Oh, you don't think there are creatures who are more evolved than humans? Well, you are wrong. Some of the entities that got split in half actually found what had been taken from them and reached the state where the atonement ritual could make them wholy. The nay-me I like best is the title referred to as Avatar. I ain't much on Sanskrit, those new agers with their uppity "Namastes", and all that pretentious "My spirit bows before your spirit" really gets on my nerves. It's one thing to be born into that way of conducting oneself from the gitgo, but to attempt to jam it up somebody's ass for show, seem ridiculous and snotty.

I almost always remember that I'm a construct myself, and not only that, but also the father and maker of what appears to the sensory world for the most part, and since many other pearline creatures are too, they can be unmade without their sacrifice being a big deal. Whoosh... off they go looking for a new body. One that hasn't got a big hole in it.

The end of the vision, as all really good visions do, existed as a poser. It left me wandering and wondering about how I got to be so privileged to see the vision itself. Sometime I think the end exists as nuclear holocaust. where all the forms of earth are destroyed simultaneously, to release the spirit of life for to join together as one. Or... will it be just more of the same until a new planet is needed because we shit ourselves out of a ho-me. One way or the other, when the mushroom clouds start appearing, as they already have, somebody gotta come up with a new planet.

I had a cousin down in Mississippi who got mixed up with a woman like Deb. He drank hisself to death and then died of cancer. He was 58 years old. I didn't know Tom all that well, because he was around ten years older than me, and we lived nearly a thousand miles apart. He was a likable fellow, and kind to me as a kid. He taught me how to shoot a .22 semi-automatic rifle his family owned. He created some bright memories for me as a kid.

His mother was one of my father's older sisters, she and her husband Barney were also very kind to me. Aunt Marietta's family were really the only kinspeople I knew very well on my father's side. Except for Aunt Marietta, my father hardly ever visited his brother and sisters. My early experiences of kinship beyond my immediate family of parent's and siblings were all with a bunch of strangers who had never set eyes on me or my people. And yet...

My father was the only one in his family to receive a seventh grade education, much less a college degree. His family were all hard-working landowners, and my father attempted to engender them with genteel qualities that didn't exist for them, so they dismissed his efforts as the delusion of too much education. Maybe in my father's imagination his family had those kinder, more refined qualities. His family, however, were not kind to my father in response to what they sensed as accusation of lowliness. It hurt him that they resented his education. Why would they not? They were hard-scrabble, red neck mofos who followed the rough-necking trade wherever it took them. No blame.

My mother's father and all but one of his sons followed the road building trade and operated heavy machinery like bull-dozers and roadscrapers. They moved all over the southwest building roads and engineering places for industries.

The oldest son of my grandfather, my Uncle Howard, refused to follow in his dad's footsteps and got into real estate developement. He stayed in the same place his whole adult life. An incredible feat with our clan which has always migrated to where the work was. That's how they ended up in America, them that didn't get sent here as prisoners.

I seem perfectly willing to accept the notion of some families having a wanderlust gene that makes some them feel more comfortable dealing with their surroundings as if their surroundings was what changed and not themselves. amd what they perceived about them was not as a stranger, but as a familiar passerby and an old friend. It's hard to miss old friends when the only ones you have are always in your pocket.

I didn't think that much about the extended families of my mother and father. We moved from Mississippi to North Carolina when I was two years old. I knew more about my relatives through my parent's stories of their youth than I knew about the actual people.

When I did see my kinsmen in actual person I only saw them as charactors in my parent's stories, and I never possessed much of my own experiences with them as fellow humans in their own right. I deliberately returned to Mississippi to live near them to see what they were like, but it was like walking into a stone wall, yet,the wall did not seem as if it were there of their own choosing. Too little, too late. All fall down...

I had a cousin down in Mississippi who got mixed up with a woman like Deb. He drank hisself to death and then died of cancer. He was 58 years old. I didn't know Tom all that well, because he was around ten years older than me, and we lived nearly a thousand miles apart. He was a likable fellow, and kind to me as a kid. He taught me how to shoot a .22 semi-automatic rifle his family owned. He created some bright memories for me as a kid.

His mother was one of my father's older sisters, she and her husband Barney were also very kind to me. Aunt Marietta's family were really the only kinsfolk I knew very well on my father's side. Except for Aunt Marietta, my father hardly ever visited his brother and sisters. My early experiences of kinship beyond my immediate family of parent's and siblings were all with a bunch of strangers who had never set eyes on me or my people. And yet...

My father was the only one in his family to receive a seventh grade education, much less a college degree. His family were all hard-working landowners, and my father attempted to engender them with genteel qualities that didn't exist for them, so they dismissed his efforts as the delusion of too much education. Maybe in my father's imagination his family had those kinder, more refined qualities. His family, however, were not kind to my father in response to what they sensed as accusation of lowliness. It hurt him that they resented his education. Why would they not? They were hard-scrabble, red neck mofos who followed the rough-necking trade wherever it took them. No blame.

My mother's father and all but one of his sons followed the road building trade and operated heavy machinery like bull-dozers and roadscrapers. They moved all over the southwest building roads and engineering places for industries.

The oldest son of my grandfather, my Uncle Howard, refused to follow in his dad's footsteps and got into real estate developement. He stayed in the same place his whole adult life. An incredible feat with our clan which has always migrated to where the work was. That's how they ended up in America, them that didn't get sent here as prisoners.

I seem perfectly willing to accept the notion of some families having a wanderlust gene that makes some them feel more comfortable dealing with their surroundings as if their surroundings was what changed and not themselves. and what they perceived about them was not as a stranger, but as a familiar passerby and an old friend. It's hard to miss old friends when the only ones you have are always in your pocket.

I didn't think that much about the extended families of my mother and father. We moved from Mississippi to North Carolina when I was two years old. I knew more about my relatives through my parent's stories of their youth than I knew about the actual people.

When I did see my kinsmen in actual person I only saw them as charactors in my parent's stories, and I never possessed much of my own experiences with them as fellow humans in their own right. I deliberately returned to Mississippi to live near them to see what they were like, but it was like walking into a stone wall, yet,the wall did not seem as if it were there of their own choosing. Too little, too late. All fall down...

I wrote a post containing the following dialogue to a discussion group that exchanges views on the sayings of Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas, basically just to stimulate more dialogue. It didn't work.

"Male circumcision serves the same purpose as female circumcision. To render the sex act less sensitive, and thereby such activity is less likely to become addictive. The desire is still there, but with circumcised men they don't get as much pleasure from the the act of coitus because there is too much scar tissue, much less the shame of being humiliated and defiled.

With the removal of the foreskin, the glans get exposed to the open air, and it is constantly rubbing up against rough clothing all the time it dries out and becomes tough as leather. It's a cruel thing to do to male beings because many circumsized men become bitter and cruel and use their penises like weapons to punish and express violence rather than instruments of love and affection. They'd rather make war than love. As insensitive as men can be some time, and there is no blame in their feeling used, women are happy to see them go to war just to have them gone. Besides, there's always the chance the husband will get killed or maimed, and there's always a little extra money coming in when that happens... and fresh meat.

Of course, circumcision is good for women. Most of them never feel anything down there anyway, and all they do it for is to have babies so at least somebody will always love them, and to control men, So, it's better just to remove the clitoris and major labia during early childhood so they won't get all cocky and start thinking
they special."


I didn't get much response to this post except from a woman who is obviously not a hedonist even though I seem quite sure she has not been circumcized. Since I didn't get any response from any men at all, I thought I'd try this circumcision rap on another group in a thread about shamans. Pretty much the same story but with a few fillip's difference


"Yeah, this is a very disenchanted pov. Everyone knows you can become a shaman in no time at all simply by going to a couple of weekend seminars.

Of course, being "wounded healer" probably helps. But, its not that big a deal. A "wound" such as circumcision is usually enough, and may exist as the original thought process involved in it's development among primitive tribes.

I've found that most circumcized men ignore thinking about the fact that circumcision is performed on men for the same reason it is performed on women. To limit the amount of sexual pleasure available to the victims of this brutal ritual, so they will not become addicted to a life of pleasure outside tribal law, but will be driven by the resulting anger and frustration to find fulfillment using other, more socially approved activities like war, politics, and moneychanging. I.E., the intent to create and entire tribe of shamans.

Between the disfigurement itself, the debiliitating numbness of scar tissue and the helplessness of being deliberately traumatized in this way at an early age, circumcision lasts an entire lifetime... and beyond.

Circumcision for women, the removal of the clitoris and minor labia, is no big deal and usually prevents a lot of heartache for the societies that practice such things. Most women never really feel anything down there anyway, and if they do, their response to such feelings usually brings disgrace to their own person, and even more to their husbands. This is what Jesus was referring to when he said that to enter the Kingdom of God women had to become like men.

To suggest that maiming is necessary to become a shaman is usually promulgated by those who have experienced such a debilitating trauma and want to set forth their shameful experience as the ring-pass-me-not for an otherwise healthy and joyous people."

Yes, I did write the above to stimulate response. Circumcision seems more popular in America with men. I've never heard of it being performed ritually on women here, unless as some holdover from first-generation immigrants who continues the practice.

To get only one response from over a thousand people seems a little unusual. I sense a lot of shame-based ignoring going on here.

I saw that female postal worker lottery winner on the Letterman show. She was old, fat, and had thin lips. She openly admitted that she was basically a miser and a cheapskate like me. But, she had the young pretty boy movie star at her knees... with only the smell of big money as the bird-in-hand. It was all she needed. LOL

Seeing ourselves in other peoples words and actions is what humans do best. It's delusional, of course, admittedly so, with the blind leading the blind! But, delusion is what we're good at, and our being good at is also the beauty of it. We are free of each others delusions, and we are free of our own delusions because we can only see what we think we were or would be, and presently, we ain't even that.

Why would we pretend to be this or that kind of person for each other, if other people, ourselves included, can only see their own concept of themselves in our words and actions?

I propose that every true motive is concieved with totally selfish intentions. Okay, maybe the motive is not intended as selfishness in any conscious understanding of the word, but in spite of that, is selfishness, disguised as our honest intent and all dressed up for a day in the life of a fool.

I compiled the information above after reading some internet articles about the Greek Cynicism movement. A person I feel friendly toward strongly suggested I am extremely cynical, and so I ran a search on Google because I wanted to understand what he was calling me. Greek Cynicism was indirectly fathered by Plato though one of his followers. You gnow, "what's-his-nayme?" or "Whoever." They stayed poor and made mockery of other peoples pretensions. I wish I had the nerve to do that. Right?

I composed the paragraph to see what it felt like to openly write something Cynical-like. People have said that I was cynical before now, but until recently, I had never actually been accused of being a Cynic. What I have written up to now exists only within the limitations I have imposed on myself, and yet, I enjoy testing those limits in small ways as I go along. I am still possessed by words and actions I have not written about. If I don't write about the stuff that needs to have it's say, I'll never have the chance to miss it, because if I don't write it out, it never leaves me or ever takes responsibility for it's own existence, as I devoutly wish for, as I ernestly prey.

Thus, I often stand accused of flaunting a brash attitude akin to some tarnished bravado that betrays a deep weakness or wound that purportedly makes me vulnerable to the eyes of the beholder. I just love for others to work this scam with me. Nothing opens the door for deep-rooted, debilitating remarks of sarcasm more than this spiteful projection.

The pain can go on forever and it is easily accomplished. My experience as a victim myself tells me they gonna give it up. They gonna roll over. Just like I gave it up. Just like I rolled over. In time, but not of choosing. Like me, they are waiting for that time to come, when their chance is gone.

Half Masks

The appearance of things caught drifting in matter
Leads on to a scheme or design.
The way of repugnance not totally shown
Is a symbol of ignorance benign.
In the pitter and patter of eloquent pose
The ghost of a maniac shows,
That the half-mask of life is endlessly empty
Until the spirit of death gnows it's throes.

fmp January,1972

A deluded sense of self importance brings the salt to the table, but it's the truth about our own selfishness that puts the salt into the wound and leaves the mark of ownership.

The phantasmagoric visuals Gautama envisioned sitting under the Bo Tree represents to me that which appears each time I sit to practice meditation.

I have peculiarities I observe as I ritually prepare a place before me. Things have to be just so. It doesn't take long to establish the set and setting because I have been anticipating the time previously. I gnow exactly what I'm going to do to allow specific, recognizable events to occur. I hardly ever gnow what part of the process these events will occur, but I gnow where to sit and wait for them to approach.

Upon assuming my sitting position I attempt to wiggle around so that I will be as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. From years of practice I seem perfectly aware that the main reason I will eventually move out of my sitting position, will happen because my wrinkled old ass gets too sore to keep sitting there on it. Otherwise, if my ass didn't start hurting, I might sit longer sometime than I do.

I practice this ritual most days at around 11 a.m. for about an hour. I practice until it becomes a pain in the ass. Then, I stop practicing, and keep my stopping still.

I really don't enjoy experiencing a pain in the ass, or anywhere else that I can't turn into pleasure. That's why I put practicing meditation off until the last second I can get away with it, and still maintain some semblance of self-respect and/or presupposed integrity.

I've read quite a few books written by meditators. I haven't had many face-to-face conversations with them, but I do read their stuff in some irregular, digital pattern. It amazes me they have anything to say at all considering the subject at hand. Meditators sit down and teach themselves how to do nothing really well, and that's about all there is to it.

When meditators write about meditating, we seem to write about technique, and the problem with writing about technique is that technique can be so subjective, and so self-instructive that reading what other people have to say about resourcing that state of emptiness appears unuseful and tritely cumbersome for the most part. This open-ended reading habit appears tedious and unnecessary, but essentially so.

I think I read about what other meditators say about meditating to learn how I'm suppose to feel about doing it. Otherwise it appears like a very selfish thing to do. This unholy inquisitiveness about how I'm supposed to feel regarding this deliberate inactivity seems to be part of the deal of thinking I'm a certain type of person. Not only in meditation, but in most of the activities I created for the sake of somebody else's conscience, and executed as if it had sprung from my own head like the Goddess Athena. It is not as though I could actually own myself for my own reasons without excuses could I? As if I could provide myself with my own reasons to exist as my own hero. And yet, I vauntfully insist that I do and I am. Imagine that as the epitome of selfishness.

Meditation is sort of like masturbation, it seems to answer unasked questions within an imposed frame that usually passes by unnoticed, unless such ignorance is deliberately flaunted out of proportion. and then pondered until the time arrives when the chance is gone... and we are chosen.