I realize that I have been bringing up the idea of “semantic aphasia” somewhat often in this little recapitulation. There is a reason for this aside from the ordinary interpretation that deals with words and our ability to access realms of pure thought via the expansion of associations. It seems that this is a model for our reality as well. In the same way that we expand our awareness of thought realms by increasing our brain capacity by mosaic word associations, so may we increase our awareness of our “hard reality” by expanding our interpretative associations of events and relationships in our lives.
But is that healthy? Is it normal? Is it not, as some might suggest, pathological?
We know that our website and books are full of some of the most far out material imaginable. We admit it freely. We also admit that we don’t necessarily believe it. For us, it is an experiment, a working hypothesis to be tested and proven or falsified. Much of what we deal with here is in the realm of pure, speculative thought. As I have said again and again, I have never seen a “Lizzie,” nor any other kind of alien except in states of altered awareness such as hypnopompic and hypnagogic sleep states. I have seen our reality in a different way more or less spontaneously when a certain “state” has fallen upon me, but as is usual with me, I always want to consider any number of things as being possibly contributory, including blood sugar levels, brain chemistry, different stresses, and so on.
We also know that there are a lot of critics out there who stop in, read a few paragraphs, shake their head in dismay, and move on. Others, with agendas, stop long enough to write and tell us that if we don’t call on Jesus, we are going straight to Hell, without passing “Go” or collecting 200 bucks. Still others feel moved to write their own websites devoted to nasty or disparaging remarks about us, in particular, rather than producing any material or theories of their own which they can test. We find this to be a curious phenomenon, but one we certainly understand.
A lot of people draw lines in the sand of their minds and establish very early on what kinds of things they will or will not consider. We have done it ourselves. Not too long ago, proposing the idea of aliens as “real” in any sense was so far outside of our own reality that it wasn’t even within hailing distance. So we know how this works. Since we had decided, a priori, that such a thing was impossible, we simply never exerted any effort really looking into it, much less examining it in a systematic way. That door was firmly closed in our minds.
But it’s a curious thing, this Universe we live in. It seems that the doors we close in our minds leave other doors in our lives wide open – and things come through those doors that are not altogether friendly. Just as a particular definition or association of a word may be unknown to an individual, leaving a sort of blank spot in their mind – a point of ignorance which may one day cause them embarrassment if they are challenged in a situation where that particular definition is the right one – so it seems that such blank spots in our awareness of the possible associations of events in our reality leave us open to their effects on us without any ability to define or understand the real meaning.
I wrote Amazing Grace for the explicit purpose of describing my life during the many years when my definitions and associations of reality were strictly circumscribed by the “dictionary of life” I was using. When things happened in my life, they were ever and always interpreted by this “dictionary” written by Christianity, and the linear, uniformitarian view of the world. If the interpretation didn’t quite fit the event, the event was either distorted in my mind, parts of it covered up, shoved under the rug, or I just ignored it. I didn’t realize that whoever writes the dictionaries that we use to understand the events of our lives have written them with only one or two basic definitions, and have left out a whole host of associations or other definitions that more fully explain the word/event. In a sense, the dictionary we use to define our lives is like a children’s dictionary where the simplest and most juvenile definition is given. This leads us to interpret our lives and the world around us in a cosmically juvenile way. Even great scholars and “experts” of all kinds continue to use the juvenile version of the cosmic dictionary when it comes to defining and interpreting the facts of their lives and the “real world.”
When the average person puts on their power clothes and goes to the workplace, or puts on their Jerry Garcia tee shirt to settle down with a brewski for the big game, intimations of mortality or immortality are not allowed to intrude. Sure, everyone has a little “strange story” to tell maybe once in their life, maybe even an ghostly encounter, and it is always whispered in hushed or embarrassed tones if it is mentioned at all. The very idea that there are layers, or depth and breadth to our reality that may not be part of the dictionary we have been brought up to use is strictly hidden. Everyone has agreed to use the “juvenile dictionary,” and anybody who proposes to use one with more definitions, more semiotic content, is attacked.
Why?
Well, because our basic reality is defined by a juvenile dictionary, of course! That means that juvenile reactions are part of the “right” definitions. People who evaluate life based on this juvenile dictionary tend to feel overwhelmed by more semiotic content. It is too much for their brains, too much to think about, too much to handle, and they begin to feel oppressed by their awareness that there may, indeed, be more to the world than they supposed. This awareness of so much unknown territory makes the person who has circumscribed their reality into comfortable zones of what is or is not right and acceptable, feel a terrifying sense of vertigo, and they want, at all costs, to close that door of awareness. So, since they can’t destroy the universe that is, they seek to get their revenge against the symbolic target of awareness – the individual who has pointed out that there are other definitions and other dictionaries.
Most of ordinary humanity – the vast majority of people – use the juvenile dictionary. They have adopted, internalized, and made real this narrow view of the world, and woe to anyone who points out that there are other languages, there are other definitions, and there is a wider semiotic content plane. But what is important is that no one is born to be forever stuck in a circumscribed semiotic content plane. They are first taught, and then they actively choose to select what definitions of their experiences they will accept and which ones they will edit out.
Gurdjieff was right: People get out of life what they put into it.
