Romantic Fiction, Reality Shaping and The Work

[Adaryn]

As for the romance being what you term "classy and not pretentious", I think you are sounding a bit uncomfortable with basic stories that are easily understood by the emotional center and which obviously make you uncomfortable.

Remember, it's not so much about the story itself, as what the story DOES TO YOU in the process of being told. It's all symbolic.

Well, if reading is stirring stuff up, then it is doing what it should do. Only when things are stirred up can one deal with them effectively.

One hint I will give at this point is this: the books are designed to stir up the sex center; to engage some emotional suffering (Cs said suffering can modify DNA and that might be even more the case with some sexual energy fuelling the process); and then bring the two (sex center, emotional center energy) up into the heart/mind with appropriate resolution toward true love, giving, devotion, etc.

Thanks for clearing that up. If it's about what those stories personally do to us, the readers, then I understand better the purpose of reading them.
I was a bit nonplussed, because I thought: why is she wanting us to read this? She's gone off her rockers (). She wants to torture us (me). We can find the same high principles of love, devotion to another/others, giving/receiving freely, duty, honour and so on and so forth, with Austen books or other books where no sex is described (especially in such graphic details).
Neil's review of Seven nights was hilarious but sobering. I thought: "Oh-oh. Here is someone who has a grip, who is able to take a distance. Whereas I'm not. It made me wonder: "Are we supposed to review that stuff from an intellectual standpoint, with salutary distance/thinking with a hammer, getting a critical look at the characters, their interactions, their psychological profiles and emotional processes etc.? But NOT getting involved emotionally, and keeping the arousal of the sex center at a minimal level? Keeping it under control."
So I was feeling rather ashamed and berating myself for being so much affected on a sexual and emotional level.
I hesitated writing about it, for fear of ridicule, and getting blunt answers which would put me back in my place: "It's just hormones acting out (I know, some part of it IS indeed hormones acting out). Get a grip. Don't start to yearn. Don't stir the Beast. Keep it under control. This is selfish longing. Waste of energy. Expand, don't contract on yourself, view it from a higher point. The point is to love others, not to want something (emotional fulfillment) for yourself. It's STS. Think of others, people are suffering all around us, people are sick, they're dying, they're getting all crazy and disintegrating all over the place. People need help. Stop babbling about your emotions. Stop feeling stuff!"
Being aware of that, I've tried to use sarcasm and derision, my cynical side: "Yeah this is totally unrealistic, the scenes are outrageously ridiculous, implausible. It's too crude. Don't make me read that. It disturbs my peace of mind".
But the emotions and the body have a life of their own. The first sex scenes I thought gratuitous. The dialogues cheesy, some lines you'd expect from a porn movie (porn movies really make me want to throw up). But it didn't quite work. It hit me after reading yet another one of those scenes. Sure there was stirring of the sex center, arousing. But there was more to it than just hormones acting out. It was the bonding / connection between these 2 characters, the complete acceptance of who/what the other was, that stirred and moved me. Stirring started in the genital area, then it moved up to the belly and up to the throat where I felt a lump, and tears started falling.
Now, the emotions are still stuck, in the throat area. And the physical sensations are akin to what you feel when you're in love, only I'm not (I am only in love with the idea of love). I've felt drained - because I wanted it to come out, to share what I was feeling but I repressed it. And then, I was/am feeling hypersensitive, tense, moody, uptight. I was really feeling an urge to share/write about it, but something - shame, fear of ridicule - kept me from doing it: "it's not appropriate, it's a reading project, that won't do! Too personal, too raw". Telling about it, it's really exposing yourself and your own vulnerability. It's a very intimate, personal thing.
But then I thought, despite my fear of getting slammed, that I should go ahead. Because we're safe here, and I got to have a little faith in people, surely they'll understand and won't judge me or berate me from feeling things that are out of my control. Laura's post reassured me that I might be on the right track. Or in any case, on a track. And if it's the wrong track, someone will provide gentle feedback. That's OK.
Another thing that came to mind while processing all that stuff was: you can learn to give, but you also have to be able to receive, which is also a form of giving.
And another, which is a quote from Harry Potter: "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love."
And I'm not just talking about romantic love, but about more encompassing love.
Now the question is, how to transmute those energies / emotions and take them to a higher level for the good of all, ie to help create a better reality where the creative principle flows freely?
And while writing this, I'm feeling a bit hypocritical, because those emotions, they're still on the lower emotional spectrum and still very much about oneself - wanting to get something for the self. But that's what it is.
So this is what I've been feeling and sensing on a gut level, unfiltered by intellectual rationalizations. It's purely emotional, and it's taken some effort to hold those emotions, feel them and describe them in writing. I needed to write this while the roller coaster is still there and emotions are still high, before I sober up, eventually decide NOT to hit the "post reply" button, and repress it all inside and go back to my usual mode of processing that kind of stuff: don't talk about it, it'll fade away (before coming back again), things will stabilize (for a while) and I'll feel ridiculous and admonish myself: "You're really a silly, half-hysterical woman. You've got it all under control now, everything is A-OK and you don't NEED to read and feel that stuff, you can deal with those things on your own. And if you can't, just go talk to a shrink. But now, you're just completely fine so there's no need to see a shrink. Maybe later. Really, what was THAT all about? Chuckles. Yeah, silly woman."

 

[zak]

I was curious where all this would take me, so just following Laura's advice, I got into it with some curiosity (bis).
So with an open mind, i finally finished my reading of The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Jennifer Ashley), which i couldn't really read in one go, i had a brushcutter to put back together, because i finally got the parts, then urgently go to diagnose a sick palm tree, finally attacked by the red weevil, then go to treat with black soap a boxwood hedge taken over by the moth, dismantle the wheels of an old lawnmower to give them to the neighbor, i took the opportunity to dismantle everything! To look for insects to feed Tchouk Tchouk Norris, a little blackbird fallen from its nest, then it was easier to feed him/her with shrimps, chicken breast mixed with egg, a great singer, eater and poop maker this Tchouk Norris.
According to the hormones of the ones and the others, it is important to "take the bait" of sensual and often very carnal passages without guilt. I would even say that this is what gives it its cachet to attract readers, at least at the beginning i just let go the reins of my body and mind to mirror the author's writing, sex is an important link/ligand in the story, and we can shout it loud and clear that it is only the tip of the iceberg.

When the ligand, the chemical key, binds to the receptor, entering it like a key in a keyhole, it creates a response that causes a rearrangement, a changing of shape, until INFORMATION enters the cell.

In a certain sense, a ligand is the cellular equivalent of a phallus! Ligand comes from the Latin “ligare”, or that which binds. The same word is also the root of “religion.” Curious, yes?

A more dynamic description of this very miniscule process would be that relating to “frequency.” The ligand and the receptor combine their identical frequencies – striking the same note, so to say – which produces a sufficiently strong vibration that more or less “rings the doorbell” to cause the doorway of the cell to open and there is some sort of exchange of atomic potentials that constitute the “information” that is “sent into the cell.” What happens next is quite amazing. The receptor, having received a message transmits it from the surface of the cell deep into the cell’s interior, where the message can change the state of the cell dramatically. A chain reaction of biochemical events is initiated as tiny cellular machines go into action and, depending on the message of the ligand, begin any number of activities – manufacturing new proteins, making decisions about cell division, opening or closing ion channels, adding or subtracting energetic chemical groups like phosphates – to name just a few. In short, whatever a given cell is up to at any moment, is determined by which receptors are on its surface, and whether those receptors are occupied by ligands or not. On a larger scale, these tiny physiological phenomena at the cell level can translate to major changes in behavior, physical activity, even mood – and ABILITY.

Ancient Science
Laura Knight-Jadczyk

As some posts before mine describe them very well, these biased, ponerized and inverted human values in today's world, those human values are the real protagonists of the story.
Even if it is less grandiose and mysterious than a visit to a cathedral, the visit of this novel was very "subtle" for me, at first it was just words lined up one after the other, but the rhythm of the emotions aroused, finally reached their target, because something in me started again, a reconnection to memories with sincere and true beings, that a word was enough, support and mutual aid was natural, each one could develop without detriment to the others, and where the realization of each one also passed by that of the others...
For example, bio has become fashionable, there is bio of everything and nothing, whereas bio is basically just something natural, by dint of imitating those psychopaths who mimic us themselves, we no longer know who is who and what is what, we have lost ourselves, we have lost our "natural". It's those holes in the hearts and souls of psychopaths who tell us what it's like to have a heart and soul!
Of course, everything comes at a price, which you have to pay, but when "you have learned, you have learned!"
I write this in reference to the fall from our "etherity" to our "physicality" through the temptation of the sexual act of a Cass' session.
These readings as such tell us that through the flesh and not for the flesh, that through physicality and not for physicality, it is no longer a question of falling in love, but of rising with love, it is no longer a question of perverse and vile emotions, but of noble and authentic feelings et caetera. And this is why it is good and maybe funny to be present in our "physical" integrity today because if we manage to reach our potential as human beings, it can reverse the STS Alpha Bait, and give another dimension to our STS life to a STO/STS one, a balance...(actually i don't know, it takes a lot of faith.)
We often hear that the human being is the best in the worst.
Well, we need an even worse crisis than the one we are going through to be better?
And i'm writing all this after reading a book where a guy and a girl touch oneself the beanstalk, yeah absolutly!
It can only be interesting to know where this implusion comes from, who is behind this literary movement, the final design point of all this.
Well, I'm going to continue reading the rest about the adventures of the Mackenzies for three francs six cents.
It's even more funny in spanish, i've learned some new words that I don't think I gonna use so early in a conversation!
LIGAND

 

[Jacques]

We can find the same high principles of love, devotion to another/others, giving/receiving freely, duty, honour and so on and so forth, with Austen books or other books where no sex is described (especially in such graphic details).

Well for me the best place to find those true high principles of love, devotion to another/others, giving/receiving freely, duty, honour and so on and so fort between two real people are in the Wave and in the Cassiopaea experiment Transcripts.

 

[genero81]

Thank you @Adaryn! I appreciate the honesty. After Laura clarified a little the reason for this I thought, I will make this a priority. Especially in light of the things Thorbiorn posted about. What better way to get to the root of our issues and ultimately our choices than through the sexual center? Did not G teach that our machines were broken precisely because the other centers were doing wrong work borrowing from the sex center?

We made a group decision to experience this level of physicality. We need to make a choice as a group for love that isn't seeking to posses. But first we must know what that looks like. Perhaps this is the way to do that. And we have the Wave amplifying the effect so we cannot easily hide what needs exposure from ourselves. OSIT

 

[Laura]

To Laura
Awakening involves building on top of what already works. Kundalini/awakening (snake spiraling up) start from lower sex cakra up to crown. You have to open each cakra progressively. Example at lower vibration one often involves of enjoyment in physicality (sex, food, etc) when you evolve more, you start using your mind more (reading, reflection, etc) and last you developed emotional/ spirituality (loving, meditation etc). It doesn't mean that once you progress you stop enjoying physicality. You still enjoy making intimate love to your partner with all your 7 cakra open (body, mind, emotional). reading is mind activity not the optimal choice for developing spirituality, I suggest you get quality friends so you can surrender in networking with spiritual masters.

You obviously know nothing about Gurdjieff and Fourth Way type work. I think you are in the wrong forum.

 

[Laura]

Well said Gaby--I have the same reaction to the Outlander series.

The main reason I am NOT reading or recommending something like Outlander is purely because of the science fiction aspects. This exercise is to be grounded in reality as we know it, even if it is represented in a context of a historical remove. There is no magic, no special powers, no getting around work.

 

[Laura]

Thanks for clearing that up. If it's about what those stories personally do to us, the readers, then I understand better the purpose of reading them.

I sorta thought I made it clear that it was about what the stories do to the reader. I guess not.

I was a bit nonplussed, because I thought: why is she wanting us to read this? She's gone off her rockers (). She wants to torture us (me).

The very reason I hesitated as long as I did about opening the topic. Also the very reason I took the time to explain what I was thinking in the opening post.

We can find the same high principles of love, devotion to another/others, giving/receiving freely, duty, honour and so on and so forth, with Austen books or other books where no sex is described (especially in such graphic details).

To a limited extent.

As many of you know, I'm privy to a lot of confidences from many people of a VERY private nature. I'm aware how messed up some people's very private lives are. It gradually dawned on me, based on the pooled information from many, many people, that reading about healthy sex might actually help some people who are in relationships. So, there's that.

But mainly, what interests me is the potential for arousing and transmuting energies especially at a time when it appears that emotions have gone "hyperkinetic" all over the world. How best to combat that?

I'm sure that many of you are aware that the entire time that "Frank" was involved in the experiment, there was a very negative attitude toward sex and physical relationships. I've wondered about that a lot considering so many other things that fell out over the years. I've wondered about it even more with the events of the past ten years or so and the emergence of the LBGT agenda. There was also a session where the Cs said something about men (and women?) losing their libidos in the times preceding or during The Wave. Those things put together have caused me to think quite a bit. And maybe some of you can think about it too and put together some obvious deductions. Like, ask yourself the question if the whole messing up of sex center energy is not a planned attack of some sort? And what about the nutcases who promote stuff like "Curious Beagle" came out with in a post above? That nonsense has been around for a long time and never did anybody any good and Gurdjieff warned stringently against the deceptions of kundaline and the Abuse of Sex (which is not what most people think).

So, there's all that. Think about it!

Neil's review of Seven nights was hilarious but sobering. I thought: "Oh-oh. Here is someone who has a grip, who is able to take a distance. Whereas I'm not. It made me wonder: "Are we supposed to review that stuff from an intellectual standpoint, with salutary distance/thinking with a hammer, getting a critical look at the characters, their interactions, their psychological profiles and emotional processes etc.? But NOT getting involved emotionally, and keeping the arousal of the sex center at a minimal level? Keeping it under control."

Neil's review was rather like "whistling past the graveyard."

So I was feeling rather ashamed and berating myself for being so much affected on a sexual and emotional level.

You are supposed to be affected on those levels and let the story take you to the higher level.

I hesitated writing about it, for fear of ridicule, and getting blunt answers which would put me back in my place: "It's just hormones acting out (I know, some part of it IS indeed hormones acting out). Get a grip. Don't start to yearn. Don't stir the Beast. Keep it under control. This is selfish longing. Waste of energy. Expand, don't contract on yourself, view it from a higher point. The point is to love others, not to want something (emotional fulfillment) for yourself. It's STS. Think of others, people are suffering all around us, people are sick, they're dying, they're getting all crazy and disintegrating all over the place. People need help. Stop babbling about your emotions. Stop feeling stuff!"
Being aware of that, I've tried to use sarcasm and derision, my cynical side: "Yeah this is totally unrealistic, the scenes are outrageously ridiculous, implausible. It's too crude. Don't make me read that. It disturbs my peace of mind".

I think you will find as you continue that many of the stories are just beautiful even if not written by someone with a Liberal degree in literature! And the lessons of the stories enter on the subliminal level. And most definitely yearning or longing for such a world is a good thing. What might happen if a whole bunch of people with awareness did that in these times of emotional amplification? That's my big question.

But the emotions and the body have a life of their own. The first sex scenes I thought gratuitous. The dialogues cheesy, some lines you'd expect from a porn movie (porn movies really make me want to throw up). But it didn't quite work. It hit me after reading yet another one of those scenes. Sure there was stirring of the sex center, arousing. But there was more to it than just hormones acting out. It was the bonding / connection between these 2 characters, the complete acceptance of who/what the other was, that stirred and moved me. Stirring started in the genital area, then it moved up to the belly and up to the throat where I felt a lump, and tears started falling.
Now, the emotions are still stuck, in the throat area. And the physical sensations are akin to what you feel when you're in love, only I'm not (I am only in love with the idea of love). I've felt drained - because I wanted it to come out, to share what I was feeling but I repressed it. And then, I was/am feeling hypersensitive, tense, moody, uptight. I was really feeling an urge to share/write about it, but something - shame, fear of ridicule - kept me from doing it: "it's not appropriate, it's a reading project, that won't do! Too personal, too raw". Telling about it, it's really exposing yourself and your own vulnerability. It's a very intimate, personal thing.

But then I thought, despite my fear of getting slammed, that I should go ahead. Because we're safe here, and I got to have a little faith in people, surely they'll understand and won't judge me or berate me from feeling things that are out of my control. Laura's post reassured me that I might be on the right track. Or in any case, on a track. And if it's the wrong track, someone will provide gentle feedback. That's OK.

You are most definitely on the right track!

Another thing that came to mind while processing all that stuff was: you can learn to give, but you also have to be able to receive, which is also a form of giving.

And another, which is a quote from Harry Potter: "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love."
And I'm not just talking about romantic love, but about more encompassing love.

Now the question is, how to transmute those energies / emotions and take them to a higher level for the good of all, ie to help create a better reality where the creative principle flows freely?

Well, that's what we want to find out. And I think you have to repeat the process with multiple stories that have the same underlying dynamic in order to purge the bad and imprint the good. You have to get to the point where YOU see the patterns, the symbols, the lessons. It's like a different take on myths.

And while writing this, I'm feeling a bit hypocritical, because those emotions, they're still on the lower emotional spectrum and still very much about oneself - wanting to get something for the self. But that's what it is.

And that's normal. And who knows what it might trigger in a person's life to have a clear idea of what is wanted, what is good, and how to engage with it?

So this is what I've been feeling and sensing on a gut level, unfiltered by intellectual rationalizations. It's purely emotional, and it's taken some effort to hold those emotions, feel them and describe them in writing. I needed to write this while the roller coaster is still there and emotions are still high, before I sober up, eventually decide NOT to hit the "post reply" button, and repress it all inside and go back to my usual mode of processing that kind of stuff: don't talk about it, it'll fade away (before coming back again), things will stabilize (for a while) and I'll feel ridiculous and admonish myself: "You're really a silly, half-hysterical woman. You've got it all under control now, everything is A-OK and you don't NEED to read and feel that stuff, you can deal with those things on your own. And if you can't, just go talk to a shrink. But now, you're just completely fine so there's no need to see a shrink. Maybe later. Really, what was THAT all about? Chuckles. Yeah, silly woman."

No, just keep reading and full-bore enjoying and see what happens.

 

[Tauriel]

Well, I've read only one third of 'The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie" by Jennifer Ashley so far.
At first I was reluctant to order such a book . When it arrived it was placed on the kitchen table and I wasn't in the mood to start reading. The cheesy cover gave me flashbacks of my mum's literature.
Yesterday my son came for a visit and I caught myself turning the book around so he couldn't see the cover. He has the same snobbish attitude as myself when it comes to books.

I started reading in the evening and quickly found myself back in my childhood when I read everything my parent's book shelf had to offer, mostly my mum's romance novels. I remembered that I feasted on the 'Angelique' series by Anne Golon when I was 10 or 11 years old and realised that these stories had a huge impact on me and my idea about love relationships.
At 3am before the actual sex scenes I forced myself to stop reading and go to sleep.

While immersed in reading I haven't thought for one second about the state of this world. So even if I haven't grasped yet what Laura is waiting for for us to realise here it has already been a huge relief....like a big exhale after holding my breath for months.
My sexual desires lately dropped to a level of almost being non existent and reading stirred a bit of arousal but not in a way that I felt manipulated in a negative sense.

I will read on now, but one thing I realised already: obviously it needed permission to read about romance again. Thank you, Laura.

 

[Laura]

I was curious where all this would take me, so just following Laura's advice, I got into it with some curiosity (bis).
<snip>

According to the hormones of the ones and the others, it is important to "take the bait" of sensual and often very carnal passages without guilt. I would even say that this is what gives it its cachet to attract readers, at least at the beginning i just let go the reins of my body and mind to mirror the author's writing, sex is an important link/ligand in the story, and we can shout it loud and clear that it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Exactly.

The whole process reminds me of a passage in ISOTM where Gurdjieff says:

"But on the fourth way knowledge is still more exact and perfect. A man who follows the fourth way knows quite definitely what substances he needs for his aims and he knows that these substances can be produced within the body by a month of physical
suffering, by a week of emotional strain, or by a day of mental exercises— and also, that they can be introduced into the organism from without if it is known how to do it. And so, instead of spending a whole day in exercises like the yogi, a week in prayer like the monk, or a month in self-torture like the fakir, he simply prepares and swallows a little pill which contains all the substances he wants and, in this way, without loss of time, he obtains the required results.

(There is more in ISOTM about special "substances" and so forth if anyone has a text or pdf copy and wants to search.)

In any event, there are processes in the body that produce substances and one of the main one is sexual arousal - especially if it is prolonged and not discharged. Discharge is not forbidden, but each individual is different (see again "Abuse of Sex")

As some posts before mine describe them very well, these biased, ponerized and inverted human values in today's world, those human values are the real protagonists of the story.

Even if it is less grandiose and mysterious than a visit to a cathedral, the visit of this novel was very "subtle" for me, at first it was just words lined up one after the other, but the rhythm of the emotions aroused, finally reached their target, because something in me started again, a reconnection to memories with sincere and true beings, that a word was enough, support and mutual aid was natural, each one could develop without detriment to the others, and where the realization of each one also passed by that of the others...

Exactly.

For example, bio has become fashionable, there is bio of everything and nothing, whereas bio is basically just something natural, by dint of imitating those psychopaths who mimic us themselves, we no longer know who is who and what is what, we have lost ourselves, we have lost our "natural". It's those holes in the hearts and souls of psychopaths who tell us what it's like to have a heart and soul!
Of course, everything comes at a price, which you have to pay, but when "you have learned, you have learned!"

I write this in reference to the fall from our "etherity" to our "physicality" through the temptation of the sexual act of a Cass' session.
These readings as such tell us that through the flesh and not for the flesh, that through physicality and not for physicality, it is no longer a question of falling in love, but of rising with love, it is no longer a question of perverse and vile emotions, but of noble and authentic feelings et caetera. And this is why it is good and maybe funny to be present in our "physical" integrity today because if we manage to reach our potential as human beings, it can reverse the STS Alpha Bait, and give another dimension to our STS life to a STO/STS one, a balance...(actually i don't know, it takes a lot of faith.)

We often hear that the human being is the best in the worst.

Well, we need an even worse crisis than the one we are going through to be better?

And i'm writing all this after reading a book where a guy and a girl touch oneself the beanstalk, yeah absolutly!
It can only be interesting to know where this implusion comes from, who is behind this literary movement, the final design point of all this.
Well, I'm going to continue reading the rest about the adventures of the Mackenzies for three francs six cents.
It's even more funny in spanish, i've learned some new words that I don't think I gonna use so early in a conversation!
LIGAND

Beautifully put! Thank you!

 

[Zar]

Just finished Seven Nights and I think it's very fascinating. It seemed like the book was written is several languages(or rather forms of communication), one was the intellectual as you think about the plot and characters as you wrap your head around the story, but underlying this was a language of the emotional/sexual centres and this seems to be the whole point of this piece of fiction. I think I can see/feel what Laura is talking about;

One hint I will give at this point is this: the books are designed to stir up the sex center; to engage some emotional suffering (Cs said suffering can modify DNA and that might be even more the case with some sexual energy fuelling the process); and then bring the two (sex center, emotional center energy) up into the heart/mind with appropriate resolution toward true love, giving, devotion, etc.

Once I saw this pattern, I realized that a substantial number of repetitions of this process, all within the body/mind could quite easily bring about some kind of reset of emotional energy at a higher level.

And it seems to me that those who are most uncomfortable with the process may indeed need it the most. Especially since, as already mentioned, we are in a period of "hyperkinetic sensate" where it seems that even ordinary emotions are amplified.

You could even say that this kind of reading - selected books only - is something like neurofeedback only for the emotions; it can quite possibly transmute lower emotions to higher ones.

There is more I will say about it later. I'm still waiting for some of you to "get it".

Even while reading the sex scenes I found them to be essential to create this effect in the reader. There was so much hidden(but in plain sight if you're engaged with more than the mental centre) through out these scenes that it was not about sex but about a transformation as has been explained by Laura in her quotes. I'd have to read more of these books to understand the effects better though.

 

[Laura]

Just finished Seven Nights and I think it's very fascinating. It seemed like the book was written is several languages(or rather forms of communication), one was the intellectual as you think about the plot and characters as you wrap your head around the story, but underlying this was a language of the emotional/sexual centres and this seems to be the whole point of this piece of fiction. I think I can see/feel what Laura is talking about;


Even while reading the sex scenes I found them to be essential to create this effect in the reader. There was so much hidden(but in plain sight if you're engaged with more than the mental centre) through out these scenes that it was not about sex but about a transformation as has been explained by Laura in her quotes. I'd have to read more of these books to understand the effects better though.

Continue with that series since it is where you started. Ark is on the second book and loves it even more than the first. Lots of adventure in the subsequent books!

 

[Mari]

Dear @Adaryn,

I hesitated writing about it, for fear of ridicule

Me too, that´s why I´ve just summarised all in one word.

But then I thought, despite my fear of getting slammed, that I should go ahead. Because we're safe here, and I got to have a little faith in people, surely they'll understand and won't judge me or berate me from feeling things that are out of my control. Laura's post reassured me that I might be on the right track. Or in any case, on a track. And if it's the wrong track, someone will provide gentle feedback.

...and I´m so grateful you´ve broken the ice!
And thank you Laura for your analysis!

It hit me after reading yet another one of those scenes. Sure there was stirring of the sex center, arousing. But there was more to it than just hormones acting out. It was the bonding / connection between these 2 characters, the complete acceptance of who/what the other was, that stirred and moved me. Stirring started in the genital area, then it moved up to the belly and up to the throat where I felt a lump, and tears started falling.

Exactly how I felt reading those scenes.... Like; this connection they have and this what is described is not sex - it is making love.

So, I´ve decided to continue with the second volume: A Rake's Midnight Kiss (Anna Campbell).

So @Adaryn - small spoilers I´m at 30% of the book and it isn´t nearly as the first volume. So far is about development of the characters and building up the story and I´m quite interested in HOW THIS ONE will end!

So far, it all made me think about my own relationship and how to improve it and I´ve also started to put down some thoughts that come to my mind after reading.

 

[Pierre]

It was the bonding / connection between these 2 characters, the complete acceptance of who/what the other was, that stirred and moved me

I understand what you experience. I went through a similar process reading 7 nights (about 80% read). The intimacy, the trust, the communication, the honesty between the two protagonists deeply moved me, it awakened a deep longing and made me remember my first relationship.

It lasted 10 years from when I was 16 until 26 y.o. The first 9 years, we were not living under the same roof, the relation was mostly physical. On this level it was great but there was nothing else. On the 10th year we moved in the same house, a few months later I sabotaged the relationship which then ended.

In retrospect, I realize that I was terrified about real intimacy, not physical one but emotional one. While reading this book I could see how a relationship that started with seduction and sex evolved in a deeply honest, loving and accepting one. It got me very regretful, realizing that this bond is so beautiful and appealing, what a part of me has been longing for all along. But at the time, it terrified me so much that I ended up running away from it.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

But the emotions and the body have a life of their own. The first sex scenes I thought gratuitous. The dialogues cheesy, some lines you'd expect from a porn movie (porn movies really make me want to throw up). But it didn't quite work. It hit me after reading yet another one of those scenes. Sure there was stirring of the sex center, arousing. But there was more to it than just hormones acting out. It was the bonding / connection between these 2 characters, the complete acceptance of who/what the other was, that stirred and moved me. Stirring started in the genital area, then it moved up to the belly and up to the throat where I felt a lump, and tears started falling.
Now, the emotions are still stuck, in the throat area. And the physical sensations are akin to what you feel when you're in love, only I'm not (I am only in love with the idea of love). I've felt drained - because I wanted it to come out, to share what I was feeling but I repressed it. And then, I was/am feeling hypersensitive, tense, moody, uptight. I was really feeling an urge to share/write about it, but something - shame, fear of ridicule - kept me from doing it: "it's not appropriate, it's a reading project, that won't do! Too personal, too raw". Telling about it, it's really exposing yourself and your own vulnerability. It's a very intimate, personal thing.

I think this is a great observation of what is actually happening, right along the lines of what Laura suggested.

Well, if reading is stirring stuff up, then it is doing what it should do. Only when things are stirred up can one deal with them effectively.

One hint I will give at this point is this: the books are designed to stir up the sex center; to engage some emotional suffering (Cs said suffering can modify DNA and that might be even more the case with some sexual energy fuelling the process); and then bring the two (sex center, emotional center energy) up into the heart/mind with appropriate resolution toward true love, giving, devotion, etc.

Once I saw this pattern, I realized that a substantial number of repetitions of this process, all within the body/mind could quite easily bring about some kind of reset of emotional energy at a higher level.

And it seems to me that those who are most uncomfortable with the process may indeed need it the most. Especially since, as already mentioned, we are in a period of "hyperkinetic sensate" where it seems that even ordinary emotions are amplified.

You could even say that this kind of reading - selected books only - is something like neurofeedback only for the emotions; it can quite possibly transmute lower emotions to higher ones.

Basically, it is spiritual alchemy - via romance novels.

The discussion so far reminds me of another thing Gurdjieff said: in addition to having the lower centers in order, one should be free of sexual neuroses. I think this is because in order for sexual energy to circulate and flow where it should, and to catalyze inner transformations and transmutations, all the blockages must be cleared, and I suspect these blockages can be at several different levels for different individuals, and sensed within the body at those levels (e.g., at the level of the genitals, belly, solar plexus, heart, throat).

Sex energy can be purely 'physical' and remain on a low level - this is just the pure animal response which can be triggered by sexual imagery or imagination. But embedded within a narrative, emotions can be triggered too - conflicts, neuroses, blocks in communication - by engaging with the depiction of 'real people' in the corresponding circumstances. So now you have emotions that can be sensed and felt in the body, e.g. abdomen. And through the resolution of these conflicts in the story, this resolution can take place within you as well. And the resulting state of harmony and love can be felt in the heart and head. It's like the story guides these activations of energy within one's body. Sex is activated, emotions of conflict are activated, but they are sublimated through truth, understanding, and love, reaching up to the impulses of the higher centers. Like repeated alchemical distillations and processes, resistances can be overcome and blockages cleared - at least that's the theory!

For Gurdjieff, "si 12" was the energy of sex. Here's some of what he said about it in ISOTM as a reminder, and keeping in mind the limitations of his presentation in strictly material terms:

" 'New birth,' of which we have spoken before, depends as much upon sex energy as do physical birth and the propagation of species.

"'Hydrogen' si 12 is the 'hydrogen' which represents the final product of the transformation of food in the human organism. This is the matter with which sex works and which sex manufactures. It is 'seed' or 'fruit.'

" 'Hydrogen' si 12 can pass into do of the next octave with the help of an 'additional shock.' But this 'shock' can be of a dual nature and different octaves can begin, one outside the organism which has produced si, and the other in the organism itself. The union of male and female si 12 and all that accompanies it constitutes the 'shock' of the first kind and the new octave begun with its help develops independently as a new organism or a new life.

"This is the normal and natural way to use the energy of si 12. But in the same organism there is a further possibility. And this is the possibility of creating a new life within the actual organism, in which the si 12 has been manufactured, without the union of the two principles, the male and the female. A new octave then develops within the organism, not outside it. This is the birth of the 'astral body.' You must understand that the 'astral body' is born of the same material, of the same matter, as the physical body, only the process is different. The whole of the physical body, all its cells, are, so to speak, permeated by emanations of the matter si 12. And when they have become sufficiently saturated the matter si 12 begins to crystallize. The crystallization of this matter constitutes the formation of the 'astral body.'

"The transition of matter si 12 into emanations and the gradual saturation of the whole organism by it is what alchemy calls 'transmutation' or transformation. It is first this transformation of the physical body into the astral that alchemy called the transformation of the 'coarse' into the 'fine' or the transformation of base metals into gold.

"Completed transmutation, that is to say, the formation of the 'astral body,' is possible only in a healthy, normally functioning organism. In a sick, or a perverted, or a crippled organism, no transmutation is possible."

"Is complete sexual abstinence necessary for transmutation and is sexual abstinence, in general, useful for work on oneself?" we asked him.

"Here there is not one but a number of questions," said G. "In the first place sexual abstinence is necessary for transmutation only in certain cases, that is, for certain types of people. For others it is not at all necessary. And with yet others it comes by itself when transmutation begins. I will explain this more clearly. For certain types a long and complete sexual abstinence is necessary for transmutation to begin; this means in other words that without a long and complete sexual abstinence transmutation will not begin. But once it has begun abstinence is no longer necessary. In other cases, that is, with other types, transmutation can begin in a normal sexual life—and on the contrary, can begin sooner and proceed better with a very great outward expenditure of sex energy. In the third case the beginning of transmutation does not require abstinence, but, having begun, transmutation takes the whole of sexual energy and puts an end to normal sexual life or the outward expenditure of sex energy.

... only a person who is completely normal as regards sex has any chance in the work. Any kind of 'originality,' strange tastes, strange desires, or, on the other hand, fears, constantly working 'buffers,' must be destroyed from the very beginning. Modem education and modem life create an enormous number of sexual psychopaths. They have no chance at all in the' work.

"Speaking in general, there are only two correct ways of expending sexual energy— normal sexual life and transmutation. All inventions in this sphere are very dangerous.

...

"In the first place it must be noted that normally in the sex center as well as in the higher emotional and the higher thinking centers, there is no negative side. In all the other centers except the higher ones, in the thinking, in the emotional, in the moving, in the instinctive, in all of them there are, so to speak, two halves—the positive and the negative; affirmation and negation, or 'yes' and 'no,' in the thinking center, pleasant and unpleasant sensations in the moving and instinctive centers. There is no such division in the sex center. There are no positive and negative sides in it. There are no unpleasant sensations or unpleasant feelings in it; there is either a pleasant sensation, a pleasant feeling, or there is nothing, an absence of any sensation, complete indifference. But in consequence of the wrong work of centers it often happens that the sex center unites with the negative part of the emotional center or with the negative part of the instinctive center. And then, stimulation of a certain kind of the sex center, or even any stimulation at all of the sex center, calls forth unpleasant feelings and unpleasant sensations. People who experience unpleasant feelings and sensations which have been evoked in them through ideas and imagination connected with sex are inclined to regard them as a great virtue or as something original; in actual fact it is simply disease. Everything connected with sex should be either pleasant or indifferent. Unpleasant feelings and sensations all come from the emotional center or the instinctive center.

This last bit suggests to me that reading novels of this sort can trigger these neuroses, and help work through them. First, by removing some of the negative associations acquired by the sex center, and then through a working in concert with higher, positive emotions.

As for the books themselves, I was waiting for some hardcopies to arrive, but decided to get some kindles in the meantime - so I'll get started today! Will report back.

 

[mkrnhr]

Continue with that series since it is where you started. Ark is on the second book and loves it even more than the first. Lots of adventure in the subsequent books!

The second (midnight kiss) is even better than seven nights, and for those still worried of any hints of erotica, it's less explicit in that regard. At one point while reading, the intellect took over "why Richard didn't you kill cursed Nevill and his evil servant" but it turned out better the way it did.