Session 6 July 2024

[Mark7]

Hello, did you know that chatGPT has the transcripts of the sessions uploaded?

Well, that's interesting, a little scary that anyone using ChatGPT and who knows about the material can play around...
The sessions have always been available to the public, but not so easy to access. ChatGPT could probably put the transcripts in a form suitable for Latent Dirichlet Allocation, a dumb machine-learning algorithm that finds significant topics in a book or large volume of text. The reason for using 'old fashioned' single-purpose data analysis algorithms is they have one purpose, (or at least one focus), and cannot diverge from that purpose - unlike machine learning, where there seems to be room for monkey business.

The data wrangling needed to convert the transcripts to the proper form seems like it would be really difficult, requiring REGEX and a lot of other complex manipulation.

​

 

[Yas]

You can program a machine to report a dysfunction of a loss of performance: if parameter < threshold then seek beep. I don't think seeking therapy requires self-reflection, just a distress of some sort and the possibility of a solution. All living beings, plants and animals included respond to distress. OSIT

I agree with this.

In the video posted before where they interview a woman who says she doesn't have inner dialogue, for example, she says she can feel anxiety, bit she doesn't experience it as excessive inner dialogue/thoughts like many other people, she said she felt it as physical sensations.

I don't mean to say that that woman is an OP but if her experience were to be compared to what an OP might experience, they could have issues too, but they would be experienced differently, perhaps more like physical sensations.

Perhaps the number of people like this who go to therapy is lower because of a lack of self-reflection and therefore inner struggle or inner friction, but not necessarily inexistent.

 

[Oxajil]

One initial question to answer might be what percentage of OPs ever seek out therapy.

If an OP seeks therapy, what would be the reason behind? Since they can’t think or reflect on themselves, how would they come up with the conclusion that something psychological is affecting them?

I don't think seeking therapy requires self-reflection, just a distress of some sort and the possibility of a solution. All living beings, plants and animals included respond to distress.

I don't mean to say that that woman is an OP but if her experience were to be compared to what an OP might experience, they could have issues too, but they would be experienced differently, perhaps more like physical sensations.

Yeah, I think they experience it differently and that they can seek help. When discussing the Art of Living course in this session and whether OPs could benefit from Kriya, the Cs said:

Q: (L) That was pretty strong. (L) So don't think that breathing and prana... I think we ought not lose site of the fact that psychopaths and OPs and all living beings use prana. (An**) Yeah. (L) And they like it. It's life force. (Craig) Does this Kriya have any possibility of rehabilitation for OPs?

A: Why do they need to be "rehabilitated"? Do you want to "rehabilitate cows"?

Q: (laughter) (Craig) Moo! (Chu) Ohmoo! (L) I mean, obviously it helps them. They get prana, too. (Craig) Yeah, the thing is that might be more dangerous. (L) Well, the thing is that I think that people have the wrong idea about OPs. I think that OPs are a normal, natural part of the landscape. They are useful, beneficial - as long as they are in their place and doing what they're supposed to be doing, what they're created to do. And as long as they have the proper guidance. It's not something to be afraid of. I mean, you don't want to be married to them or have intimate relations with them, because then they hook in and directly drain your energy. But being afraid of them, that's the whole wrong attitude. We've had a couple here that we've studied long and hard and carefully, and they are what they are. They're emotional and they can be loving towards animals, loving towards their children and families. They can be good householders. (Allen) Also, "rehabilitate" assumes that there is something wrong with them. (Craig) They're blocked from any spiritual development. (J) What do you mean by rehabilitate an OP? (L) Make them not OPs? (Craig) Well, no, help them evolve. (L) Well, they evolve by receiving proper guidance for how to live their lives. And in that sense... (Ark) The point is not to expect from an OP that he will behave like a non-OP. (Craig) Well, that's not my question, my question was... (Allen) What you specifically asked was can they be rehabilitated, and rehabilitation is something you do with someone who was up here, and fell down here. Something happened to them and they got... OPs are just OPs. (L) Oh, well you were thinking... (Craig) Well, because I worked with prisoners. (L) Yeah. (J) Well, then the question shouldn't be... (L) Here, let's ask.

A: Most of the prisoners are not OPs. Most OPs are very good "citizens."

Q: (Ar**) It's like a toaster. Toasters are useful, they toast, and you can give them the ability to toast better, but it will always be a toaster. And you don't want to sleep with a toaster because that would really hurt. (Craig) I suppose this gets into the question of the evolution of individual souls. (J) Kriya could be useful for potentially souled people who are in struggle, or souled people who are in struggle. (Craig) So, is there a benefit for OPs to do Kriya?

A: Of course!

Q: (L) Benefit, just not rehabilitation. I think it's beneficial for everybody. Except that psychopaths might...

[Second Tape is inserted]

(L) As your question. (Craig) So, are OPs in the public signing up to the Art of Living course? Is this a concern?

A: No.

Q: (L) My guess would be that they would sign up, probably in numbers equal to potentially souled people because they have probably as often as anybody else trauma in their backgrounds, or being abused, or... (Craig) So I want to ask the same question about psychopaths. Is this a problem?

A: Oh indeed. Especially as the process becomes more widely known.

I think that OPs can experience trauma (think of OPs who for example get abused in childhood or otherwise) and trauma can be stored in the body and that can cause certain reactions or behaviors. That could possibly lead them to seek help or be advised to do so. If they lack inner speech and insight, it will be difficult to work through things by reflecting on traumatic experiences. In this case, more somatic based work as Yas suggested, body work or breath work might be beneficial for them.

I would think that exposure could also work to an extent. For example, a dog who was abused 'learns' he doesn't need to be scared when he's moved to a loving family after a while. Similarly, an OP who was abused and thereby becomes scared of people (automatic response) can 'learn' (also automatic response) not to be scared once he lives around loving people who don't hurt him.

Not all souled beings seek psychological help and not all OPs do, but a portion of either probably do, but how much each portion is, is difficult to tell. It could be equal numbers.

Added:

Also, do those who don't respond to therapy share any other features? E.g., severity or type of mental illness?

That's a good question and would need some research.

 

[jacygirl]

Yeah, I think they experience it differently and that they can seek help. When discussing the Art of Living course in this session and whether OPs could benefit from Kriya, the Cs said:



I think that OPs can experience trauma (think of OPs who for example get abused in childhood or otherwise) and trauma can be stored in the body and that can cause certain reactions or behaviors. That could possibly lead them to seek help or be advised to do so. If they lack inner speech and insight, it will be difficult to work through things by reflecting on traumatic experiences. In this case, more somatic based work as Yas suggested, body work or breath work might be beneficial for them.

I would think that exposure could also work to an extent. For example, a dog who was abused 'learns' he doesn't need to be scared when he's moved to a loving family after a while. Similarly, an OP who was abused and thereby becomes scared of people (automatic response) can 'learn' (also automatic response) not to be scared once he lives around loving people who don't hurt him.

Not all souled beings seek psychological help and not all OPs do, but a portion of either probably do, but how much each portion is, is difficult to tell. It could be equal numbers.

"Similarly, an OP who was abused and thereby becomes scared of people (automatic response) can 'learn' (also automatic response) not to be scared once he lives around loving people who don't hurt him."

This sentence made me wonder if an OP in this situation ever learns from experiencing a narcissist, or series of them (in relationships of any type). A narc can 'love' you for years and then decide that they aren't getting what they want/need from you anymore and find a new source to feed their ego. (Source? Feed? Hmmm...)
This narc can then abandon you suddenly, destroy your reputation (usually done before you're aware of the situation) so that you are the bad guy and they are justified in marrying somebody else 3 months later.
What effect would this have on an OP, if they thought they had finally found love/security after previously being abused? Considering how many non OP's never figure it out, I supposed it's not really a fair question. Just wondering if anyone else thinks an OP may be less wounded, more...or equal with non OP's...?

 

[A Jay]

One initial question to answer might be what percentage of OPs ever seek out therapy. Also, do those who don't respond to therapy share any other features? E.g., severity or type of mental illness?

Another question would be what might drive them to therapy.

The closest thing we can have to a clear picture and analysis of how OPs process information and the extent of their experiences and so forth is probably going to come from Dr. Hurlburt's research interviews. Some of these interviews suggest there is a self awareness that can recognize when the person experiences anxiety and that anxiety is in fact experienced.

Take his case subject Lena as an example. She has no inner speech and yet seemingly experiences anxiety. From her fifth sampling interview she says:

• Sample 5.3 [31:03]: Lena notices a painful sensation in her stomach and feels intensely anxious, which she experiences as a whirlwind of emotion and catastrophic thoughts (like What could this mean? Is this normal? Is it liver failure? Am I going to die?) and a sense of doom. [Lena said that] “whirlwind” was not metaphorical but rather, that her experience was in some way horizontally swirling like an actual whirlwind except with no vertical motion. [It was hard to tease apart description, metaphor, and confabulation about the whirlwind.] At the same time, Lena is engaged in a rational process of trying to calm herself down.

It should be noted that according to her samples thinking for Lena often involves pictures and never involves words. What she means by catastrophic thoughts and how she actually experiences the thoughts at the time aren't exactly clear.

Here's the actual video, and I have it starting at the moment she begins discussing this particular beep:

I think that OPs can experience trauma (think of OPs who for example get abused in childhood or otherwise) and trauma can be stored in the body and that can cause certain reactions or behaviors. That could possibly lead them to seek help or be advised to do so. If they lack inner speech and insight, it will be difficult to work through things by reflecting on traumatic experiences. In this case, more somatic based work as Yas suggested, body work or breath work might be beneficial for them.

If the above is to be believed then it's not even exclusively trauma which would drive an OP to therapy. They could experience negative emotions and seek therapy to help manage them.

 

[Mark7]

The reason for using 'old fashioned' single-purpose data analysis algorithms is they have one purpose, (or at least one focus), and cannot diverge from that purpose - unlike machine learning,

Sorry I meant large language models/AI, not machine learning, it was late, and I was tired.

 

[A Jay]

If the above is to be believed then it's not even exclusively trauma which would drive an OP to therapy. They could experience negative emotions and seek therapy to help manage them.

Well, this is why it's important to be thorough as apparently I've misremembered some seriously important details.

I went back through Lena's interviews and it turns out she does have at least one instance of inner speech where she expresses a thought in words in her own voice in her head and several instances of speaking words she is reading.

Here's some examples:

• Sample 7.1 [0:29]: [Lena is reading.] She innerly says the words “went mad” in her own voice as she reads them. The beep interrupts her saying “went mad.” At the same time, she innerly sees, in color and motion, a young girl in her professor’s apartment. [This is the scene Lena is reading about.] Also at the same time, she feels curious, and innerly says “Do all poets really die young?” in her own voice. [Thus Lena is engaged in two simultaneous inner speakings.]
• Sample 7.2 [16:44]: [Lena is still reading.] She innerly speaks in her own voice the words as she reads them. Simultaneously she innerly sees the professor seducing his young female student. Also present to her are simultaneous feelings: disgust and a sense of impurity/innocence-lost; an empathic feeling of the professor’s desperation; and an empathic feeling of the girl’s fear.
• Sample 7.3 [47:24]: [Lena is still reading, the same story as in 7.1 and 7.2.] She innerly speaks the words in her own voice as she reads them. She innerly sees the scene she is reading about: the professor walking into the student building to copy the girl’s personal details. At the same time, she marvels (with both feeling and cognitive aspects) at the extent to which the professor will take his obsession.

I think this means that Lena can be tossed out as an OP as expressing one's own thought in words in one's voice in one's head seems pretty definitively inner speechy to me. Guess we'll need to keep looking if we're going to find someone who definitely has no inner speech and details their experiences of negative emotions.

Mel might fit the bill of OP but I'm not seeing any discussion of negative emotions at a quick glance of her interview transcript.

 

[Yas]

I remembered that in another course I took, the professor spoke about mata-analysis type studies trying to compare different psychotherapies in relation with post-traumatic stress disorder. What he said is that they found no difference between what they call "bona fide" modalities of therapy.

Here's the study he cited. I can't see the therapies mentioned in detail but the professor mentioned EMDR and exposure therapy as some of the modalities included.

The relative efficacy of bona fide psychotherapies for treating post-traumatic stress disorder: a meta-analysis of direct comparisons - PubMed

Psychotherapy has been found to be an effective treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but meta-analyses have yielded inconsistent results on relative efficacy of psychotherapies in the treatment of PTSD. The present meta-analysis controlled for potential confounds in previous PTSD...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Psychotherapy has been found to be an effective treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but meta-analyses have yielded inconsistent results on relative efficacy of psychotherapies in the treatment of PTSD. The present meta-analysis controlled for potential confounds in previous PTSD meta-analyses by including only bona fide psychotherapies, avoiding categorization of psychotherapy treatments, and using direct comparison studies only. The primary analysis revealed that effect sizes were homogenously distributed around zero for measures of PTSD symptomology, and for all measures of psychological functioning, indicating that there were no differences between psychotherapies. Additionally, the upper bound of the true effect size between PTSD psychotherapies was quite small. The results suggest that despite strong evidence of psychotherapy efficaciousness vis-à-vis no treatment or common factor controls, bona fide psychotherapies produce equivalent benefits for patients with PTSD.

He also mentioned another analysis that I can't find online to cite here, where the authors analyse the previous study and other data and come to the following conclusion:

Given the evidence that treatments are about equally effective, that treatments delivered in clinical settings are effective (and as effective as that provided in clinical trials), that the manner in which treatments are provided are much more important than which treatment is provided, mandating particular treatments seems illogical. In addition, given the expense involved in "rolling out" evidence-based treatments in private practices, agencies, and in systems of care, it seems unwise to mandate any particular treatment.

In the course, the point the teacher was making was that what was more important in the treatment was the therapeutic relationship, which seems to be the consensus even with techniques like EMDR, or shall I say, especially with something as EMDR.

This topic of the therapeutic relationship is something that is mentioned in the book Healing Developmental Trauma as well, which states that it is through the relationship with the therapist that the healing occurs.

I do believe that the modality is important too and the appropriate use of such modalities and techniques, which can only come with a certain presence of the therapist which in turn will foster a certain relationship between client and therapist.

Now, the reason I bring this up is because it made me wonder if this therapeutic relationship is also something that would, in the end, help the OPs as well.

Q: Do the "centers" as described by Mouravieff relate at all to the idea of "chakras?"

A: Quite closely. In an individual of the organic variety, the so-called higher chakras are "produced in effect" by stealing that energy from souled beings. This is what gives them the ability to emulate souled beings. The souled being is, in effect, perceiving a mirror of their own soul when they ascribe "soul qualities" to such beings.

I would think that exposure could also work to an extent. For example, a dog who was abused 'learns' he doesn't need to be scared when he's moved to a loving family after a while. Similarly, an OP who was abused and thereby becomes scared of people (automatic response) can 'learn' (also automatic response) not to be scared once he lives around loving people who don't hurt him.

I think something similar. But in relation to what I was saying above, what if the therapeutic relationship helps OPs too precisely because of that "emulation" and or by the same type of re-conditioning that you mention, Oxajil?

I know I'm adding another variable here as to why and how would therapy work for OPs . I also realize that what I present is more specific to PTSD. I just thought that perhaps this could also be a factor that contributes to the outcome and also the statistics of therapy.