“Unless we come to terms with our shadow side, we are condemned to become its unwitting victim.”
—Carl Jung
Once again I’ve been dealing with a disruptive work schedule and ongoing health challenges which sharply limit time to research and to post.
In an effort to post regularly during these episodes, I offer a link, this time to an article offering insight into development of personality.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/make-peace-with-your-unlived-life?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Wearing masks as a public health practice has been accompanied by much disapproving hullabaloo and shouting by some private citizens.
Some politicians, seeking to curry favor with voters, have added their voices to this protest.
In an effort to dilute ignorance with a dose of rationality I offer the following re-post: ¹
This sign, displayed in a local food store, seems worthy of consideration:
¹ beewhatyouiz.com, 09/02/2020, Ref: Covid19, Flu, and Similar Annoyances
² (Yang, Jin, et al. Modeling the Effectiveness of Respiratory Protective Devices in Reducing Influenza Outbreak. Wiley Online Library, Risk Analysis, 19 September, 2018. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/do/full/10 1111/nsa13181.)
Note the year of publication—2018—two years before the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic.
At that time, no one was interested in bending the public mind in any direction regarding covid-19.
The study deals with flu, caused by a virus.
To state the obvious, covid-19 is also caused by a virus.
To my layman’s mind, if a mask, worn correctly, is effective at blocking transmission of a flu virus, it is effective at blocking transmission of a covid-19 virus.
If, as some claim, masks are useless / dangerous to wear, then why are surgeons, surgical nurses, and anesthesiologists required to wear masks in operating rooms round the world, a present-day practice dating from a point in time far back into the last century?
For a thorough discussion of masks, with no hype, see the following:
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/08/16/face-masks -what-makes-some-better-than-others-against-covid-19/5535737002/
Last week’s post didn’t happen, swamped as I was with a combination of work and health related pressure.
This week is a bit better. I have time to squeeze in a brief post.
That having been said, lets talk about negative thinking, one way or another a subject of discussion for literally millennia.
Instead of rehashing ancient commentary, I offer discussion from the viewpoint of modern neuroscience which you can read by clicking on the link below.
In the early 20th century, a couple traveling by car on a rural road discovered that they were about to run out of gasoline.
At that time, gas stations were few and far between unless you lived in a city.
One could travel for miles without seeing a house, and telephone service in rural areas was spotty at best.
The situation they faced was thus fairly serious.
They decided to practice what they had learned in lessons offered by a metaphysical school to the effect that “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.”
They held steadily to the thought that “Divine order is at work in our lives, bringing forth perfect results in perfect timing.”
They drove on. And on and on. The gas gauge reached empty.
It stayed there.
As we say, the car was running on fumes, and continued to do so long after anyone could reasonably believe there was still gasoline in the fuel tank.
Eventually they reached a gas station and weren’t surprised to find that their fuel tank was empty.
Having refilled their tank, they finished their journey, resolving to tell their metaphysical school teacher about their successful demonstration of the power of right thought.
The teacher smiled, was silent for a moment, and then asked, “Why did you stop?”
The couple had an experience of higher consciousness.
For a time they were free of the limitations of mortal thought regarding quantities and values.
The sight of the gas station triggered their old beliefs and habits of thought, and they jumped right back to a lower level of consciousness.
Anyone sincerely walking a spiritual path will sooner or later have experiences of higher consciousness.
This is only to be expected.
The trick is to become stable in that higher consciousness.
“Excellence is not a gift given but a skill perfected. The key is self-discipline.”
Quotation from a motivational poster seen in a variety store
Shanna Swan,¹ in her book Countdown, notes that sperm counts have dropped about 60% since 1973.
If that’s not an emergency I don’t know what is.
Her research suggests sperm counts might reach zero by 2045.
Zero sperm = zero babies = bye bye us.
The cause—so-called “forever” chemicals, aka PFAS ² don’t break down in the environment or in our bodies.
They hang around, steadily accumulating and doing ever more damage, harming sperm production.
These chemicals have been correlated to “reduction of semen quality, testicular volume, and reduction of penile length”. ³
Pollution by PFAS is literally everywhere!
No part of the world is free of these forever chemicals.
Please click on the link below for more background on PFAS.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/25/us-military-toxic-chemicals-us-states
¹ Environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
² Synthetic carbon fluorine chemistry now classified as per- and poly- fluorinated compounds.
³ Shanna Swan as quoted by Erin Brockovich
.
If, while drafting last week’s post—Capitalism (6th), I had been seeking evidence that free-market capitalism must in some ways be reined in I could hardly have done better than this:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/toxic-chemicals-health-humanity-erin-brokovich
See below for a closely related topic:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/25/us-military-toxic-chemicals-us-states
Philosophers have consumed much air and ink expounding on evil—likewise theologians.
My take on evil is that it’s not an objective reality so much as a misperception, the direct result of individual and mass ignorance.
Ignorance of what?
Glad you asked.
It seems that we humans are in the midst of a paradigm shift.
A paradigm is the totality of how a person, a group, or an entire culture views reality.
A paradigm shift occurs when previously unnoticed truth is recognized.
This truth isn’t new. It always existed but was unrecognized because purpose and attention were focused elsewhere.
I nominate Newtonian philosophy as our “about-to-be-replaced” paradigm, and quantum physics as the “previously unnoticed truth”, the discoveries (and practical implications) of which are working their way into the mass consciousness at an ever-accelerating rate.
“The Western scientific community, and actually all of us are in a difficult spot, because in order to maintain our current mode of being, we must ignore a tremendous amount of information.”
—Cleve Backster, plant researcher and former CIA agent
“To be a true explorer in science—to follow the unprejudiced lead of pure scientific inquiry—is to be unafraid to propose the unthinkable, and to prove friends, colleagues, and scientific paradigms wrong.”
—Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“—(italics mine)
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
Let’s talk about this field of intelligent energy. It “…rearranges itself in the presence of our heart-held feelings and beliefs…”
To what end?
Ancient wisdom states that “moment by moment, the Almighty / The Field ? is taking shape in (our) lives according to the exact pattern of our thoughts, words, and deeds.”
Continuing…many people believe that The Almighty is opposed by Satan.
Said another way, many people believe in two opposing forces. We might call them spiritual dualists.
Others believe that “there is but one Presence and one Power in all the universe; God the Good Omnipotent.” We might call them spiritual monists.
If The Field / The Almighty ?, makes our sincere beliefs manifest in our lives, the answer to the question, “which of the above two positions is right” is astounding.
From the viewpoint of The Field / The Almighty, both are right.
The Field makes our true, sincere beliefs manifest in our lives unconditionally—the exact pattern of our thoughts, words, and deeds, whatever it may be, no exceptions.
So everyone is building his/her own world/experiences knowingly or unknowingly, simply by thinking.
Now, finally, back to evil.
If we believe that people are out to get us, or that everyone is dishonest, or that life’s a bitch and then you die, or that all cops are corrupt, etc., that’s what we’ll experience.
We make the good. We make the evil. Our world exactly mirrors our thoughts.
Our ignorance of this process causes our belief that evil has objective existence, because bad things happen to us and we don’t know why.
Whatever we experience of “good” or “evil” is somehow first birthed in our minds.
Truly, what we birthed we can kill.
Said more mildly—change our (sincere!) beliefs = change our world.
“There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our own lives.”
—Casanova
“Most of the workings of our bodies are driven by unconscious intelligence. . .With the breath however we discover something of great importance. While breathing can well be a completely unconscious process,. . . it is also possible to consciously control the flow of breath. This unique quality of the breath—that it can be both conscious and unconscious—makes it a link between the conscious and unconscious aspects of our being.” —Breathing by Michael Sky, pages 21-22
Breathing, something we take for granted, has been the subject of much commentary in past centuries.
Monks / Nuns of various religions have discovered much about conscious breathing which remains, for the present, under-investigated by mainstream Western science.
While digging into this topic, I chanced upon a discussion of “box breathing”—a stress relief technique practiced by United States Navy SEALs.
SEALs ? That pack of cast iron hard asses relieve stress using a conscious breathing technique that could well have been developed in a Hindu / Buddhist monastery?
SEALs are too strongly results-oriented to pay attention to something that doesn’t work.
For skeptics, that might be an incentive to take the whole topic of conscious breathing seriously.
Click on the link below to read a discussion of “box breathing.”
More on breathing later.
Navy SEALs Use a Technique Called “Box Breathing” to Relieve Stress and So Can You
“ Every cell of the human body is, at its core, an atomic reactor of the most exquisite design that is continuously engaged in the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter.
The material constituents of this dual conversion process are carried to the heart of each cell via physical systems that are well understood by Western science; however, free-flowing universal energy is carried to the heart of each cell as well by a subtle circulatory system that Western science has yet to describe.
Our breath is the…mechanism that drives this subtle circulatory system.
The primary way…humans convert energy into physical form is through the breath.
With every breath we take, we are gathering and transforming the raw material of our bodies and minds.
The degree of consciousness…we bring to our breathing determines the nature of our physical and mental manifestations.
The rate, rhythm, depth, intensity, physical manner, and mental attention of each breath contribute precisely to the movement and embodiment of (subtle) energy within our lives. ” ¹
¹ The text of this post is quoted from Breathing, by Michael Sky, ISBN 0-939680-82-3
Click on the link below to read a truly astounding article.
Although the reporters take a small swipe at the Trump administration, given the facts presented, it seems to me utterly irrelevant.
The fact that it’s happening at all grabs my attention—also that neither party can spare time from inter-party strife to do anything about it. ¹ ²
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/25/us-military-toxic-chemicals-us-states
¹ “Only fools fight in a burning house.”—(Paraphrasing) a line from Star Trek
² For contrast to the above described pollution, someone who claims to know what he’s talking about once stated that 3% of all the ice in Antarctica is actually frozen penguin piss.
“ An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another.
Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century but is not credible in (the twenty-first).
You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays.
You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable for half-past three, but not suitable for half-past four.
What (a person) believes depends on ( his/her ) philosophy, not upon the clock or the century. ” ¹
¹ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, ISBN 978-0-385-0156-3
” Religions are numberless
sects many
yet all follow only two ways:
one takes you to knowledge
and the other to love.
Reaching the goal
one discovers with surprise
that there is no knowledge
separate from love;
that, truly, love is knowledge
and the secret gate to both is one:
the breath.” °
“It has been known for centuries that it is possible to induce profound changes of consciousness by techniques which involve breathing.
The procedures that have been used for this purpose by ancient and non-western cultures cover a wide range from drastic interferences with breathing to subtle and sophisticated exercises of the various spiritual traditions.
Thus the original form of baptism as it was practiced by the Essenes involved forced submersion of the initiate under water, which typically brought the individual close to death by suffocation.
This drastic procedure induced a convincing experience of death and rebirth, a far cry from its modern form involving sprinkling of water and a verbal formula.
In some other groups, the neophytes were half-choked by smoke, by strangulation, or by compression of the carotid arteries.
Profound changes in consciousness can be induced by both extremes in the breathing rate—hyperventilation and prolonged withholding of breath—or a combination of both.” ¹
“Respiration has a special position among the physiological functions of the body. It is an autonomous function, but it can be easily influenced by volition. Increase of the rate and depth of breathing typically loosens psychological defenses and leads to release and emergence of the unconscious (and superconscious) material.” ²
As the foregoing quotations indicate, controlled breathing can work changes in our lives.
For most of us, the first thought in our minds would be, “Who knew?”
No special knowledge is required for what we’d all call “normal breathing.”
It just happens.
But when we begin to practice controlled breathing, its helps to know some of what our ancient ancestors knew about using such techniques and what results they expected.
° C. M. Chen as quoted by Frederick Leboyer, The Art of Breathing, (London, Element Books, 1979, pg 1
¹ Stanislav Grof, The Adventure of Self-Disccovery, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1988, pg 170
² Grof, The Adventure of Self-Discovery, pg 171
In various ways, in eleven previous installments, Reality Check (1st through 11th), I’ve discussed what I know of the power of thought, and for a time I toyed with the notion of moving on to other topics. But truth to tell, I’m drawn to this topic repeatedly.
It’s long been said that the power of thought was known to some of our truly ancient ancestors for at least 5,000 years.
Usually, such knowledge was passed from mind to mind in deep secrecy.
Why the secrecy—the usual mix of human frailties ?
Or perhaps a “socially responsible” desire to keep great power from people too unevolved to use it wisely, much like parents locking firearms in a gun safe to keep them from the hands of a naive four-year-old? I really don’t know.
I do know that humanity is experiencing a rebirth of awareness of the power of disciplined thought, and, however slowly it may be seeping into the mass awareness, rate of penetration is accelerating and seemingly unstoppable.
Curiously, the usual interest groups just don’t exist to be tracked by any who might find this universalisation of personal power inconvenient for the maintenance of their own selfish agendas.¹
Usual interest groups?
Members of a typical interest group have more than one common interest / characteristic—they’re some combination of ingredients: rich, poor, white, Black, Native American, oriental, christian, atheist, republican, democrat, veteran, skilled crafts-person, alcoholic, divorced, thin, fat, hypochondriac, healthy athletic, computer nerd, conservationist, industrialist, anarchist, optimist, pessimist, cop, robber, “…doctor, lawyer, Indian chief…” The list could go on forever.
Groups investigating the power of thought are all too often, with the sole exception of this interest, heterogeneous.
Members gather for study / encouragement then go their separate ways, returning to their usual settings, for the most part having nothing else to do with each other.
These groups are not here today, gone tomorrow. They’re stable.
My conclusion? Anytime something cuts across racial, ethnic, political, and socioeconomic class lines in such a fashion you can bet the farm it’s touching people in a deep way.
This “something” is evidently worth more to them than the exercise of their typical group prejudices.
Some sharp inner hunger is being fed?
Are these folks reconnecting with a long-forgotten aspect of true human nature and, perhaps, for the sake of this benefit they’re motivated to suspend usual reactions to certain groups? ²
¹ For example, as more and more of us learn to heal ourselves through the power of disciplined thought, will stockholders in “big pharma” rejoice?
² Animals do something similar during forest fires. Prey and predator alike race for water, taking refuge, side by side, on any convenient island, sand bar, or rock pile. The prey / predator game is suspended for the duration.
Praise? ¹
Yes, indeed.
Consider the following. . .
From its stalk we can produce cloth and plastic, and four times as much paper per acre of hemp as from an acre of trees.
Hemp is more efficient than cotton, requiring just 110 days to reach a height of two to three meters, enabling harvest of several crops in a single season.
Hemp converts carbon dioxide to oxygen at a rate more rapid than almost any other plant, being weight for weight three to four times more efficient than deciduous leaves.
The fruit of the hemp plant is easily digestible, provides as much protein as soy beans, together with essential amino and fatty acids.
Huo Ma Ren is the Chinese name for a healthy oil made from hemp seeds, widely used in herbal remedies.
Bio-diesel fuel, methanol and ethanol can be produced from hemp seed and stalk without the sulfur bi-products that cause air pollution and acid rain.
Fast-growing, carbon dioxide-capturing, nourishing, natural, renewable, many uses, and when converted into fuel, much less polluting.
And obviously profitable to grow.
That’s a lot to like.
So let’s mass-plant hemp?
¹ Information in this post found in: Masaru Emoto, The Secret Life of Water, ISBN 978-1-4165-2218-8
While cleaning out old files I chanced upon a letter I sent many years ago to a third degree Wiccan high priestess regarding a health issue she had mentioned on her coven’s web page. ¹
As I reread it, it occurred to me that it might be of interest to those who are following my Reality Check series, because it touches directly on the power of thought.
With names and addresses omitted, here it is.
Respectful greetings, (name),
On (your website) you mention having hereditary grand mal seizures. Please consider the following line of reasoning which may prove helpful in eliminating this challenge from your life.
The primordial All-Mother / All-Father may be thought of as: life, love, intelligence, substance, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. No combination of these properties will produce disease. The primordial All-Mother / All-Father is our true heredity parentage. Therefore we cannot inherit disease.
The subconscious mind has a powerful “lifeward thrust”, which it makes manifest in our lives, subject to the limitations of mortal thought accepted as true by the conscious mind.
The subconscious mind never argues with the conscious mind, so whatever we believe to be true is what the subconscious mind makes manifest in our lives.
It is always fully aware of what we really believe.
It contains the perfect blueprint for our physical bodies, and can regenerate or recalibrate any parts or processes at any time, at any speed, in the teeth of any so-called insurmountable obstacles.
The subconscious mind can instantly heal, provided that such healing is not inhibited by the limitations of mortal thought regarding what is/is not possible, (such as false beliefs about the immutability of hereditary conditions).
There is no limit to what the subconscious mind can make manifest in our lives, although getting out of its way may take patience and persistence if a false belief has become deeply rooted.
In view of the foregoing, logically, our mental diet is one of the most important aspects of our lives.
The limitations of mortal thought cannot bind us without our consent.
Our freedom exactly matches that of our true heredity parentage, our primordial All-Mother / All-Father.
Blesséd be!
(signature added)
¹ At the time of writing, this was a private letter (to a complete stranger). I didn’t include footnotes, but now, having published it on a blog anyone can read, I feel compelled to do so.
However, I’m having difficulty remembering just what I was reading so many years ago. After much consideration the sketchy list below is, for now, the best I can do.
Sources: Joseph Murphy, Ph.D., D.D.
Emmet Fox
Unity Institute.
As noted in Reality Check (9th), Masaru Emoto, a Japanese alternative healer, once decided to speak a specific word or short phrase into a container of distilled water, freeze a drop of it, then photograph the resulting ice crystal.
This week we note the equally creative things he did with cooked rice. ¹
I quote: “…we put cooked rice in three glass jars, and to one of the jars we said “Fool!” To another we said “Thank you.” And we simply ignored the rice in the third jar. The rice that was told “Fool!” darkened and rotted. The rice that was told “Thank you” fermented and had quite a nice fragrance. The rice that was ignored turned black and emitted a highly repugnant smell.“
“However, that’s not the end of the story. I took these same jars of rice to an elementary school, and the students said Thank you” to the rice in all three containers. It wasn’t long before the rice in all three containers fermented and started to emit a pleasant smell—even the rice that had spoiled.“
His conclusion: “This indicates that even that which is dying and decaying can be brought back to life by caring attention, kind words, and positive thoughts.” ¹
Care to experiment on yourself ?
¹ Masaru Emoto in The Secret Life of Water ISBN 978-1-4165-2218-8
Masaru Emoto, a Japanese alternative healer, once decided to speak a specific word or short phrase to a container of distilled water, freeze a drop of it, then photograph the resulting ice crystal. ¹
If this sounds bizaare, consider the results.
Into separate containers he spoke a word or short phrase.
Words such as love, happiness, peace, or a phrase such as thank you, (this one in several languages, by the way), produced beautifully symmetrical ice crystals.
Words such as hate, war, or phrases such as you idiot produced unbalanced or even grotesquely misshapen crystals.
Apparently the energy of specific words is absorbed and held by water.
Our bodies are 70% water.
A recording of our voices sounds different from what we hear naturally. The recording device “hears” what’s transmitted through the air. Our ears, on the other hand, hear a blend of vibrations transmitted internally through our skulls as well as through the air.
If the energy of our speech vibrates through our skulls, it’s certain it vibrates in some of the water of our bodies. If retained, with what effect on our health, sanity, and longevity?
Draw your own conclusions.
¹ Masaru Emoto in The Secret Life of Water, ISBN 978-1-4165-2218-8
My Reality Check series has so far dealt with individual thought.
There’s also group thought, which has at least the potential to function the same way as individual thought.
Has anyone thought to study this?
Glad you asked.
As it happens, rather much experimentation has been devoted to this subject.
Measuring thought requires belief that thought can have precisely measurable impacts on something.
A physical being—perhaps species homo sapiens?
Nope.
In a nothing-special human body composed of, say, 50 trillion cells, there are septillions♦ of chemical reactions occurring every second in every thimbleful of our cells.
How do you control all possible variables in such a system?
You don’t try.
Any measurements could be massively contaminated by complex variables beyond enumeration or control.
Enter Acetabularia, a species of Caribbean and Mediterranean algae.
It’s a single-celled plant, growing to a length of two inches, thus visible to the naked eye.
If one measures the output of this cell before and after sending it a thought, you can be sure any change was caused by the thought.
The trick is to measure the right thing—for example, the cell’s photon output.
No joke—an organism’s photon output varies directly as its level of stress.
How would one measure the photon output of a single-cell plant?
With extremely sensitive photocount detectors, capable, for example, of measuring the light output of a single candle burning several miles away.
A German scientist, Fritz Popp, designed and conducted an experiment.
The plant’s photon output was first measured.
Then people based in London sent the plant, housed in Fritz Popp’s laboratory in Germany, a thought of good health, measurements of photon output being taken in coordination.
Result? A precise experiment suggesting that group thought has impact for good or ill.
♦ One septillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
This post is based on information found in Lynne McTaggart’s The Intention Experiment, ISBN 978-0-7432-7696-2 McTaggart in turn credits Fritz Popp with designing the experiment.
This sign, displayed in a local food store, seems worthy of consideration:
¹ (Yang, Jin, et al. Modeling the Effectiveness of Respiratory Protective Devices in Reducing Influenza Outbreak.
Wiley Online Library, Risk Analysis, 19 September, 2018, onlinelibrary wiley.com/do/full/10 1111/nsa13181.) “
For a thorough discussion of masks, with no hype, see the following:
Insignificance.
Impotence.
Isolation.
In 1963 Edward Lorenz ¹ presented a hypothesis to the New York Academy of Science.
In essence it stated that a butterfly could flap its wings, thus setting in motion molecules of air, which would move more molecules of air, eventually starting a hurricane on the far side of the planet.
Derisive laughter greeted this hypothesis—Lorenz and his seemingly wacky idea were literally laughed out of the meeting.
Well, he who laughs last…
More than thirty years later, physicists from round the planet concluded that what was known as “the butterfly effect” was dead accurate!
A while later this “wacky idea” was declared to be scientific law!—aka The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions.
Law.
Like Boyle’s Law.
Like The Law of Conservation of Matter And Energy.
The physicists took nothing on faith.
They had experimental data to back up their acceptance of “the butterfly effect.”
Now, this law deals with much more than bug wings.
It literally deals with everything.
We’re part of “everything.”
What initial conditions can we establish which will have equally profound effect?
Many might answer that without a “majority” behind them, nothing beyond mere beginnings can be achieved.
Well, consider the total energy output of a lone butterfly flapping its wings a few dozen times.
Ultimate result—a hurricane—the total energy output of a typical specimen is greater than the energy potential of the combined nuclear weapons arsenals of the entire planet.
If such a tremendous effect can result from such a relatively puny “initial condition”, what can we achieve by taking a few steps while refusing to believe in failure?
The timetable may not be ours to control.
We might not live to see the “hurricane” that results from our “wing flapping.”
But, considering this law, belief in our individual powerlessness to effect positive change is, I sincerely believe, an untenable position.
We are all greater than we have ever suspected!
¹ Founder of chaos theory, a branch of mathematics focusing on the behavior of “dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.”
beewhatyouiz 