Creative Visualization I

     The Aikido student visualizes that his arm is a firehose spewing high pressure water, and suddenly that arm becomes twice as strong as normal. A monk in Tibet visualizes a burning core suspended in a sphere of dark, empty space, and his body produces so much heat that his pillow made of ice not only melts, but steams throughout the night, where sleeps exposed to the elements. The monk is able to get up in the morning and dry soaking wet towels by holding them against the heat of his body.      The professional athlete drills visualization of winning scenarios and his stats improve correspondingly. The hypnotist or neuro-linguistic programmer learns to word things in certain ways that are more effective at reaching into the deepest parts of the mind.

     These are positive examples. Many people visualize the things they fear or worry about. When we give the mind a scenario, it plays it out in a kind of simulation. This wouldn't be so bad if we were clearer in ourselves about how well we know others and ourselves. Many people think they do not visualize, which is a highly doubtable thing.

     Mental images can be fleeting and vague, and some people don't understand that they are using the mind's eye in those cases. Visualizations developed out of long habit can flit by in a microsecond, or be so ingrained in us that we don't even notice them. These things can crop up like memories, and probably are at least related to memories. We wouldn’t fear things in the future without some kind of memory containing a warning to cause us the anxiety. Even then, creative imagination isn't confined to the visual realm; we can just as easily imagine a touch, or a voice, or a situation- all are coming from the same source.

     It is not common to intentionally visualize things, though the practice has been around for a long time and is steadily growing. There are any number of books on the subject now in the public domain, free for the picking from online archives.

     Some marginal success can probably be had from these old techniques, but I am interested in a "beefed-up" version. What would be the difference of result if we took a weight lifter and had him visualize lifting his target weight, and also took another lifter and had him visualize lifting wrecking balls, or planets, or neutron stars?

     What happens when we greatly exaggerate elements of our visualization? What happens if we visualize, not the specfic thing we want, but the catalyst for our mind to reach a certain conclusion? One common mark of genius is the use of creative imagination. Large equations have been rendered into stories about the travels of some character, each part of the story a symbolic representation of part of the equation. One can sit in meditation and visualize stretching down and touching their toes and find themselves able to bend deeper than they could only a moment before this visualization takes place.

     This kind of visualization helps set information in the mind, both by helping to associate it with different things we know, as well as directing our full attention at the new information. This ought to make it more likely to transfer from information to actual knowledge we can use.

     I am interested in what can be done, even more than what once was. What can we do in our time to make the world and life a better experience for everyone? It seems that this is the common ideal set out as motivation for any book that discusses things that could change the social order. The claim, however, is often followed by content that restricts freedom, or promotes elite organizations and views, or is racist, or generally has some kind of major flaw. Plato's republic inspired this great dream of Utopia, inspiring dozens of snuffy academics and philosophers to crown themselves the best fit to rule the earth.

     Visualization isn't much different than dreaming. We can learn in dreams (just the other night I had singing lessons, and I can make a note much better!). There is no reason not to suppose that we can learn from imagining just as easily as dreaming or observing others. Tesla claimed to invent his devices completely in the mind first, before building a single thing!

     When you visualize, try blowing it out of proportion. Make it a little bit impossible, a little harder than you expect, or exaggerated in some proportions. Draw upon modern imagery, especially if you were or are a fan of cartoons, comic books, and anime. The tibetan monk can imagine a tiny sun in a black sphere; that's fine for him. With our imagery, we can imagine ourselves to be completely made of flame, or create that same heat-building sphere between our hands. An ancient martial artist might imagine the wind behind him, where we can concieve of a jet engine. A caster of chi can imagine that it flows out and touches his target, but why can't we imagine a vast blade of chi-force arcing out like a scimitar, travelling for a thousand yards?

     The variations are as infinite as the imagination itself. We can stay in the realm of reality, and go a little overboard here and there. Imagine the weights as heavier, the running faster, the sight better, and the breath deeper.

     Add as much emotion as you can to a visualization. Make it into a true spell with every part of you, and you will get the best possible results. Make a sigil, concoct a ritual, chart a day and an hour, and visualize the outcome.

     In all texts, it is important to do things now. There is no future, and the past is only background setting. "If it isn't good enough today, then it wasn't good enough yesterday and won't be any good tomorrow." If we want it today, then we need to make it possible yesterday and receive it today. Tense is a major factor in magic or manifesting or speaking the word. Our words have far reaching effects that would boggle the unprepared mind.

     A man named John C. Lilly wrote a book titled "Programming and Meta-programming," that frames human development under terms of an interactive bio-computer.Here, visualization is taken to a whole new level, more in line with what I am thinking myself.

     The idea is that the subconscious and imagination already know how to perform any change we might desire or concieve, but to be effective the concept for change has to fit certain requirements. First of all, the conceptual vehicle for change must be adequate to meet the goal in mind. Second, the conceptual vehicle must engage the mind and the emotions: that is, it must be important enough to inspire change in every instance. Third, the concept must speak the proper language for the recipient of the messages we wish to send; it must speak the language of symbol, metaphor, myth, and legend.

Therefore, we have these three realms in which to divide and organize a methodology. Each individual is uniquely coded in their structure, sees things a little differently, so it makes little sense to look for a universal method of spiritual unfoldment. Were such a thing possible for man, he would have only ever had one religion, and no one would be able to shake his faith in such a foundation. A perfect religion is the equivalent of a direct doorway to Divinity, and while such a religion is sure to exist, it does not appear to exist as a defined structure in any single tradition. It seems more like each faith is a general roadmap by which a few, here and there, manage to find their way out of the darkness.

      There are those in today's so-called spiritual/truth movement that advocate not participating in the world or its systems.
      The second they start telling you you shouldn't work, shouldn't use money, shouldn't educate yourself with secular knowledge, you might want to pause and ask yourself where they got the knowledge to communitcate in spoken and written language, where and how they live, how they travel, procure food and clothing, and pay for their internet activities.
      If the answer isn't something like "I mine my own gold," as they stand on a podium wearing homespun fabric or woven grass underwear after arriving on foot, there's obviously a huge pile of bullshit somewhere.
      If they aren't actually working at making a living, then they are making a living off of everyone who buys into what they're sayng who ARE paying the money they worked for to hear them talk.
This is the world we live in. I know it's convenient to lay the blame for our problems on politicians and corporations and the education systems, but who makes up those groups if they are not humans? Secret aliens? if that's the case we all might as well give up now, because who can compete with that? It's like ants expecting to protest and make someone tear down the house over their anthill.
      Assuming it isn't the Annunaki and the greys pulling strings, humans do have the power to tear everything down. We can destroy all civilization in ten days or less, and yes, we can all 'opt-out' of the systems. We can all stop going to school, stop going to work, stop driving cars, and stop each other from doing all these things. We can tear down the power plants and start living off the land.
      Billions of people will die, but we won't have anyone "controlling us". Then those groups that do want to control you will win, because we handed them their depopulation agenda without much effort.
      We can continue as we are, and the global capitalists will win, because we handed them their goal without much effort as well.
      So...how do you win? By adhering to a code of ethical conduct based on reasoned morality. What good is a corporation as a tool of control if all of it's employees (that's more than 99% of us) refuse to act contrary to morality and good sense? What good is someone who seeks to cloud your judgement and control you if you are well educated, have a mind trained to reason, and a heart full of compassion?
      What good is a religion telling you what is right or wrong, if we have a world full of people who already know right from wrong?
      No...I'm afraid that it's not as easy as opting out. This war is going on around you, between these two factions of control, but we, as individuals and as groups, are the pawns in that war.
Have you seen someone doing messed up things, and how those around them say "to hell with it, I'm going to do it to"?
      People learn by example, and people change their behavior by example. We are individuals, but we change our behaviors to match the group. The sooner we care more about good judgement, rather than what is expedient in the moment, the sooner we all set better examples for each other.
That is the only way to win this war, which doesn't include us yet for which we are the pawns of action.
      The second we begin to realize that we are able to refuse to do what is wrong and refuse to be controlled will be the second we begin to usurp control from the usurpurs of our sovriegnty.

On the Nature of Love, Part I

 On the Nature of Love, Part I

What are the differences between faith, hope, and love? Faith and love, at least, are used almost as synonyms. The Oxford Dictionary says of hope, "expectation and desire," and of faith, "trust complete," and faithful, "constant, true to fact."
Love, apparently, is commonly defined as "deep care and affection for. Sexual passion." Curiously this is pretty much the same entry as that of the word "lust."
Love is far more than taking pleasure from another. Love is far more than taking pleasure from another. Mothers weep for the lost sons of war.
Look at our home, this universe. Is it not the most instructive example of love?
Is not everyone accepted as they are?
She does not judge, but constantly bears us and nurtures all things.
Love can work counter to desires for enjoyment of our own. Love is like nature.
Growth and life are beautiful, and love is the highest regard and admiration of beauty.
That is why we love a rose more by leaving it uncut from nature; instead of clipping it and killing it.
Nature accepts the roses and thorns both, and she takes us in her arms just the same.
We are nature by substance, and every little particle of us is therefore built of, lives in, and subsists upon pure love. No other ingredient actually exists, in some sense far beyond our capability to understand.

What is "Normal?"

     I think I finally figured out what 'normal' truly means. In terms of psychology, normal is defined thus: approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment. The definition of the word: normal, doesn't seem like that big of a deal until you really look at it. How has the word been applied in your experiences? It seems to me that 'normal' is used in two situations. In the first situation, the term is used as a means of identifying something in the negative; such as in, "that is not normal." The second way the word is used seems to be a means of stripping it of its identity to make it generic, "Your average, normal Joe Schmoe."

     This has lead people to define themselves as abnormal. Abnormal doesn't just mean not normal- it has deeper, more negative undertones. When you apply abnormality to a person, it in no cases makes that person feel good. It may make you feel defiant, but not good. Defiance comes from refusing to be placed in a negative category but that can be from fear of it being true just as much as from surety that it is not true. I have done this myself, taken these negative terms and using them to identify myself, seeing it as a scar of honor. "The world may hurt me, but I stand tall."

     Normal is not generic, and it does not mean average, either. If 'normal' meant average, then the word we use for average would probably be normal. All normal means is balanced, which again is not average. Even though an average is usually found on a balance when taking numbers of a whole group in consideration. In that context, middle C is average, being the general center of the octaves on a piano keyboard. Yet middle C is not generic and without identity; it is middle C, which is a particular tone that vibrates at 432 herz. *or 440 if you choose.

     Since this is a universe of vibration, let's stick with middle C for a minute. We will note that middle C is always middle C. It does not matter which notes are to either side, or even if the piano has strings at the moment. Middle C is always the auditory tone that vibrates at 432 hz. If you play every key on the keyboard, there would be a resounding cacophony of noise. Within that noise, completely still itself, will be the tone: middle C. We can also see that even though the string is in motion, back and forth, it moves across a central point. This is that particular strings average, or normal state at rest. We can see that middle C's normal is not even a sound at all, for it's normal state is stillness. If the string is being normal, it is still being a string but it is not a vibrating string producing sound.

     Thus we have two aspects of the normal state of a string. At rest is one normal, and during motion a string passes the state of normal twice during each oscillation. So when the string makes noise, it is only normal briefly but it keeps that reference point. When a violent force causes that string to vibrate, it makes noise only for as long as it takes to disperse the energy and return to its normal state.

Now, we can clearly see that normal for middle C is not the same as normal for F#. We can also see it resembles the normal for high C but is still unique within itself. Normal for one key is not normal for all keys. In fact, normal for one key is unique to that one key alone, and no other normal can have its unique qualities.

     It's the same way with people. Normal for me is not normal for you. Unless you are in motion or action, your normal is the state you always return to and begin from. When you are in motion, normal is the point of reference that keeps you from skipping too far out of balance.

Now, just for fun, let's imagine that musical instruments are living, thinking, communicating people. This way we can imagine there might be a piano psychologist. The piano psychologist looks at the keys and says, you guys are all different. You are not normal. The human psychologist looks at the human race and says, "you are not normal."

What's the difference? The psychologist is adding up all of the keys together and then evaluating them individually. In logic this is called a fallacy, or a false premise. To be plain, it is bad science. To show you how bad this kind of science is, lets move from the piano to something a little bigger. Like the solar system.

     Astropsychologists looks at the solar system as a whole, then looks at the earth and says, "you are not normal. If you were normal you would contain a lot more hydrogen, less oxygen, less heat, no life, and no atmosphere."

     Psychology takes the entire human race, or a segment of a population and averages its observations to create an imaginary "average person." It then tells anyone that does not exactly match this fictional average person and considers them abnormal. (that word again!)

     Now, if piano-psychologist wishes to complete his high-minded and altruistic "normalizing" of the piano keyboard, he can only do it one way. He has to add all of the keys together, and divide them again to get an average wavelength in hertz; he then has to get inside the piano and re-tune each key to that note. Astropsychologists likewise has to create an amalgam of every body in the solar system and then divide them to create an average, generic celestial body. When the piano is re-tuned, what was once the middle C key now plays a tone that is not quite a note at all, it is not middle C anymore, nor is it F# or G or any other note, yet now- every single key plays that note that is not a note. They are all the same. The reworked solar system is a bunch of floating globs of rock and gas, with no life, and no distinction from one body to another.

     What do you think the human psychologists are doing by trying to make you "normal?" Let me stop here and clearly state that they have confused the term "average" with the term "normal." What they want is no aberrations, no difference, no distinction between one person and another. You can't be too happy, too angry, too spiritual, too materialistic, too ugly, too pretty, too fat, too short, too broke, too rich, too dumb, or too smart.

     But guess what? You can't play music on an average piano, and you can't find a habitable world in an average solar system, and you will never have a full, good life by striving to be normal.

     You can be a normal person. You can consider yourself normal without some kind of psychological misdirection forcing you to apply negative words to yourself. Let's recap normal; it is: 1. Balanced. Just like a piano or a guitar string, an outside force may set you spinning but it can not take your center away. Just like you or I can weather the changing times and remain ourselves. 2. Unique. Normal does NOT mean just like everyone else. A normal middle C is still not an F#, no matter how many papers piano-psychologist publishes in peer reviewed trade journals.

     You are normal, unless your trying to be average. I don't think you want to be average, and I hope I've freed you of a negative definition applied to yourself from an outside force. Take it from a guy who's spent all his life being called weird, strange, crazy, a trip, different, or abnormal. All those words come from people who don't want to play the note to which they are tuned.

     I guess some people just hate music, and some people just hate the idea of being normal. Probably because nobody can get money out of you if you don't actually have a problem. Never let some dipshit try to twist you into a toneless, formless template of what a human being would be like completely stripped of personality, emotion, intelligence, or any other trait.

That would be completely abnormal.