Telepathy and Distant Personality Diagnosis

[T.C.]

thanks for the quote. How appropriate it is for the situation. Lots of lessons even to read.

Yes, whatever Stevie takes from this, this is such a valuable thread for everyone.

 

[go2]

I don't get the logic in this. It seems a very convenient bind with no way out.

Stevie, you locate your "I" in the center of logic. The "I" is trapped. There is a way out, but the price must be paid in full and in advance. The price is a Life for a Life.
The “I” located in the thinking center is fighting for its life. The price is a Life for a Life. This is the meaning of “You must be born again.”

‘Unless a man be born again…’----this was the keynote of Gurdjieff’s science, his work, his effort, his example. For this reason he had no patience with the man who merely ‘philosophizes’; his interest was in the man who ‘can do’.
……………………

We thought we were ready to give our lives for it. But how were we to discover, unaided, the unwritten demand behind the immense abstractions? Of course we were being aided by Gurdjieff, but the aid was offered in those terms which I had not yet come to understand: ‘I cannot develop you; I can create conditions in which you can develop yourselves.’

Here are the conditions in which you can develop yourself!

 

[Renaissance]

Approaching Infinity.

I don't get the logic in this.

You are still intellectualizing.

And there's the thing. What has been observed from the start is a constant. It's not like some elusive and mysterious creature that is rarely sighted. It is part and parcel to the way you perceive and interpret reality. However, it cannot be seen by you as long as it is front and center in your interactions. Something else has to be accessed, and for that we first have to consider the possibility that what is being seen could in fact exist. Even then it is difficult to separate ourselves from the program. For example, I have a melodramatic program, which when observed I 'admitted' but then went on to state how I was not unlike a psychopath. More melodrama. These things are so completely enmeshed in our thinking and feeling that to us, it appears to be the only possible way to define and respond to the world. It is in fact the only way we know. But of course there are other ways, which can come to light when we truly admit that we lie to ourselves, that we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do.

I don't doubt that you already know all this Stevie. And I would wager to say, that in this instance, your knowing could be what is preventing you from considering other possibilities, which really is a betrayal of the intellect.

 

[Gonzo]

Thanks to all for the reminders through the quotes.

I create room to accept the possibility that I was identifying with Stevie and that my intellectual mind came up with my question to facilitate further identification.

I find this exceedingly difficult for both the obvious reason (hat my mind feels certain behind its intent - heck, I even took a day to contemplate before posting.

The other reason has to do with traumas associated with my previous marriage where my ex-wife would only end an argument if I admitted I was wrong (she was never wrong. Ever.) This created what I saw were no win situations, but to keep the peace, I relinquished control over to her and allowed her to decide how and when everything was my fault. This caused me great damage where my self worth plummeted and I became so unsure of myself I was unable to make even the simplest of decisions, as I was then trained to not trust my own mind.

I believe I am in a safe place on this forum and that I would not be advised to take on something to my detriment.

Gonzo

 

[obyvatel]

Iron

Havent given up. I dont feel got at , no problems. thanks for your encouragements.

Hi Stevie,
How are you feeling? Your intellect is apparently trying to use logic to seek out flaws in the feedback you have received. It also tried to steer the conversation back to the topic you had originally intended. Regarding feelings however, you have assured us that this has been a "no problem" situation a few times in this thread. I have been following this thread for some time and I do feel a little anxious at times and also a little surprised at times. The anxiety is for the outcome of what I perceive as a fight to break down a part of your false personality - my surprise is at the lack of expression of feeling on your part. You are knowledgeable in the theoretical aspects of the Work - but I wonder like Shane whether it is this knowledge that is standing in the way of feeling.
I can only try to put myself in your position in the context of this thread and I see myself "burning". My self importance would be running amok. What little I understand about the Work would lead me to try to keep the external consideration going at any cost - but this would not just be for the sake of external consideration but also for the sake of the false image that I have of myself as someone doing the Work and having good control over my "horses".
[quote author=Stevie Argyll]
When people feel bad they look for a way out by supressing / fantasising, justifiying, the only thing that can keep the feeling on track is the head continually leading the horse back out of the dream out of the escape and back into feeling.
[/quote]
So what are these horses saying Stevie? Do you trust the network enough to share?

PS: I would state that I always second guess myself - am never sure of what I see in others. I do not have control over my horses all the time in my regular life. So Stevie, take my input fwiw

 

[truth seeker]

But the reason I asked my question had to do with trying to facilitate reasoning through separating the areas of discussion where I felt I saw some misunderstanding in some respondent's comments and to do so, I needed some clarification on the injection of Anart into the story, which was a potential for distraction from the greater issues as I saw them. I thought that if I could understand why Anart, who is generally bang on, felt Stevie was motivated by the sting of her comments from an earlier thread, I could then decide on how best to rectify Stevie's reactions.

In terms of emotions I had been experiencing, it was a growing frustration in myself at Stevie's focus on Anart's claim and if that claim could be removed from the equation or settled outright, I felt there was a greater chance for Stevie to be able to see the truths in the other areas.

I do recognize that that portion of the overall thread was not nearly as important as the rest, which is precisely why I thought that somehow dealing with it would allow the more important areas to be discussed unfettered by the distraction.

Perhaps this will help clarify a bit. Fairly early in the thread, Stevie was concerned that the questions he posed were not being responded to. I responded to them as well as at least two other members. The reason I responded to these questions was because I had the thought that perhaps this would satisfy his desire to have those questions answered and make him feel heard which might then allow him to be more open to hearing what was said to him. This didn't happen.

In one of his earlier posts, he said:

The question was sincere and I hoped that it would be useful and perhaps prompt discussion of whether we can or cannot diagnose personality remotely, but no one seems to doubts their ability. So the post has prompted discussion, Just not the one I expected. I would have thought the other discussion might have been a more useful exchange, but it has not happened.

The replies to his questions didn't prompt an exchange on his part. This lead me to believe (and I could be off here) that he wasn't really interested in replies, at least from those who did.

To me, this begs the question, What was the true intention of the post? If it wasn't to have his questions answered and foster an exchange (which should include him), what was the point?

This (to me) is a clue:

So far out of the first 2 replies to my post No one who answered the first time actually admitted to ever estimating themselves.

An observation, no attempt at diagnosis is made so I ask for information from those who replied.

Did you think I was offended or outraged and thats why I posted?
Was it important to 'fix me' rather than examine 'you'

He wants someone, but (in my opinion) not just anyone to admit that they have overestimated themselves. In short, he wants someone to admit that they were/are wrong. When someone wants someone to admit that they were wrong, it's because they feel they have been slighted in some way. In order to figure out who that was, we would have to look at previous threads. Usually when we try to figure out why someone may feel slighted, we try to narrow it down to the point where we notice a shift in their emotional state. This is usually something that happened in the recent past. While they may have had issues relating to things that happened earlier and were just holding it in, there is usually a tipping point. This is what we look for. The tipping point seems to be the last thread where an exchange took place.

Of the two members who posted replies on both this thread and the previous one, only one had a recent exchange with Stevie. To me, this narrows it down to who Stevie is really taking issue with.

So just to recap: There is no interest in having his questions answered. There is no interest in an apology. Which Anart gave, but Stevie either ignored or overlooked in his response. What seems to be the intent? To have someone tell him that they were wrong on his terms.

For what it's worth. :)

 

[truth seeker]

Hey Stevie,

I'd also like to know how you're doing. Try not to take what I and others have written above as a judgment against you as a person. No one is judging your ability to contribute to the forum. All that is being done is that observations are being made about behaviors we are seeing. Huge difference between the two. Please try and see this exchange not as a "piling on" or blaming, but rather an opportunity to help you see your motivations - why you do what you do.

The majority of us that post here have gone through this at least once. It's very difficult, especially the first time! There is no need to feel rejected. If you choose to, you may want to go through threads where this has happened to others (they won't be hard to find!). Take the time to find out what happened in those situations. How those members reacted and then found that they had much to learn. Perhaps you will see that no one ever held it against them. We don't hold grudges here!

In time, you may come to realize that even those who have been banned in the past always have the door open to them. I'm not saying this because I think it or hope that this is the case, I've seen it. There is far more compassion here than you may realize.

If you choose to, really take the time to sit with this. It can be very difficult to learn to trust others especially when we have not been raised to trust ourselves. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be angry. It's even okay to not know how you feel. It really is!

Be gentle with yourself and know that we really are here for you. :) And not on our terms, but yours. Whenever you're ready.

 

[Stevie Argyl]

Some meals are taking more digestion that others, I have had a busy weekend, time to return answering posts.

Stevie,

Maybe it would make more sense to turn things around. Why insist that people on other people's reading errors? Don't we here in the forum want people to be able to evaluate us correctly at a distance? It would be like going to a psychologist for therapy and loudly insisting to him or her that, "You don't know me, you can't tell me what my problems are!" The psychologist would probably calmly reply, "No I don't know you, can you help me know you better?" In other words, if you think someone is not evaluating you or your statements correctly, supply more data.

The problem is, we usually want others to see only our idealized image of ourselves not who we really are.

Some people on the forum open up and share a lot about who they are and it is easier to help them. Others are guarded, and for those, yes, it's harder to know them. We get out what we put in.

Anyway, we are talking about working hypotheses, not definitive conclusions. If you act based on a working hypothesis, and are open to correcting false hypotheses, then what is the problem?

This is spot on, as I see it. Personally, I do tend to form opinions of people prematurely, because inference always goes on below the level of conscious thought. It can't be stopped, but one can stay open for more input and ask for clarifications.

I also want people to perceive my idealized image of myself, and I am smart enough to know there are those who see me the way I really am and how the coherence of my thoughts changes from subject to subject - because I see it myself. I am still learning and trying to participate in the process of growing.

I've also experienced lack of being instantly understood. It can be frustrating and it is understandable, but patience is useful here because the number of iterations required to unify understanding is not a pre-set quantity per context.

I was curious enough to ask, Stevie: Did you consider that if you understood exactly what your own point of view was, you would be able to juxtapose what others said and automatically perceive where the gaps of understanding were located? I would think so.

BTW, my understanding of that Beelzebub's Tales reference indicates that your concern might really be related to that layer of the 'unspeakable'; between what is and one's perception and conceptualization of it. This is the layer where any bias or denial can come in and instantly distort reality, producing an inner logic that is impeccable, but the conclusion always comes out wrong.

If this is your concern, you have reason for it. We all do. But don't we also have a responsibility to be fair to others in our participation in resolving it? - what Alfred Korzybski calls "Semantic Reactions"?

Korzybski has talked about 'semantic reactions' which is when one reacts based on the consciously or unconsciously perceived "meaning" of an event, rather than based on the event itself.

As an example: Joe comes home from work and gives his wife flowers. She gets angry with him. Maybe she's assuming he's giving her flowers because he has something to hide and that it really means he is having an affair, and so she gets mad at that. Maybe Joe wanted to do something nice, or there was a sale on flowers.

Semantic reactions sometimes makes it difficult to have rational constructive interactions between people.

Training oneself to recognize and overcome semantic reactions in oneself and others, could form the basis of more sane interactions and activities between people.
Source: _http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/gensemantics.html

The 'semantic reaction' in this case being the 'meaning' that a given diagnostic metaphor/symbol, or the 'attempt' to do so, represents?

Fwiw, I think you're handling yourself fine since you are willing to consider more info.

Again, if I am completely off base, don't hesitate to say so. :)

Thanks for your input Bud.

In this this part from your post :

For example, Joe comes home from work and gives his wife flowers and she gets angry with him. She might assume that he gives her flowers because he has something to hide and it really means that he is having an affair, and she gets mad because of that. Maybe Joe just wanted to be nice, or there was a sale on flowers.

I call what The wife does in making assumptions about the motivation and then believing her own assumption 'Crystal Ball Gazing'. In the posts leading up to this thread I thought I observed Anart's 'crystal ball gazing' , my own 'crystal ball gazing' ie considering all the possibilites for Anarts post without ever knowing. In the and I saw the crystal balls coming out in the triplethink thread.

Rather than answer many of the posts after this separately I will put things in here.

Someone earlier in this thread posts that I do not take this forum seriously. Well in the contributing thread to this one a poster was having a bit of a rough time with some stuff to deal with. I empathised with the poster having been in a similar situation years ago. I recognised they might be feeling angry/sad/let down/ depressed/lost/numb/frustated and porbably all of these at different times, and I know from my experience of those places that there is a tendency for the head to be swarming in thoughts , for the endless self talk, for the same sentences to be repeated like a stuck record, for the mind and feeling to seemingly be getting somewhere with something and then the train of thought is lost and there is an abyss just as you think you are about to discover something.
So i offered a practice that I thought might be useful which is 'sitting with the feelings' as people in this situation where uncomfortable feelings are experienced might tend to escape into their head.

Anart seemed to me to suggest that that was an example of 'intellectualising my feelings' or I thought - 'maybe she thinks the practice is dissociative?'

Other posters in this thread seem not to like the role of the head - as if the feelings should just run rampant. Many are in years of therapy becuase all they know how to do is let feelings run rampant, they know no other way.

So why the head and why sitting in the moment?

Ravi Ravinder Heart Without Measure p16

Mme De Salzmann reiterated the need to make a connection between the centres, not only as an idea but as an experience. 'Even with a fine mind and a sensitive body and a very good instinct you need a connection between the head and the body. Neither should be stronger than the other. They have to have equal force then feeling will arise'.

Ok., so I know thats a work quote and I know that what I posted in the posters thread was a stripped down Gurdjieff sensing exercise. Why do it - is it insensitive and ignoring their pain to turn it to work? My intention was quite the opposite. If if sit with the feelings and my head is all over the place I miss finer feelings that might fill the gaps. There could be a state depended memory/observation in one place that might help me but its cut off from the feeling that completes the picture, getting the head quiet and sitting in feeling sometimes gives thes time to come together. If my head is a bit quieter I might notice a still point in my feelings. In this stillpoint I might find an amazing resource of inner strength that I never knew was there or I might just find the floodgates opening and cry my eyes out for what seems like forever. I hoped that the practice might help the poster. I thought the desire came from empathy - did it come from some arrogance instead? I am still examining that.


To those who though the head policeman role is intellectualising then perhaps this will clarify a bit.

My head must be in the right place - now I just dream but my thought has to be there - and to remember more quickly what has to be acheived. It has to be taken like a fish swallowing a bait. Disengage the head - but be sure it is still on your shoulders. The head is a policeman.
To count on the feelings themselves is to count on a miracle - it may happen but it is a miracle.

Jane Heap from her Notes p38.


This is all I have time to contribute just now - it does not mean everything else is or has been ignored I have got to go earn an income and prepare for friends coming to stay for a couple of days.

 

[Stevie Argyl]

Ouch !

Now I am even moving away from the point of the topic.

Believe it or not the accuracy of obserations on the internet deeply interests me, some of you have had a lot more experience than me. It is a genuine curiosity and how is wiseacring prevent, how is filing the gaps with our own hallucinations prevented?

Apart from that , thanks for the mirroring. You are a hard working lot :) I mean that with sincerity my crappy humour often belies.

 

[Laura]

Anart seemed to me to suggest that that was an example of 'intellectualising my feelings' or I thought - 'maybe she thinks the practice is dissociative?'

Other posters in this thread seem not to like the role of the head - as if the feelings should just run rampant. Many are in years of therapy becuase all they know how to do is let feelings run rampant, they know no other way.

So why the head and why sitting in the moment?

The problem here, Stevie, is the usurping of emotional energy to run the intellect. This action has a particular flavor and "feel". It comes through loud and clear in both the spoken and written word. The following is a passage from the "textbook" on recognizing this sort of phenomena.

Ponerogenic Phenomena and Processes

Following the space-time network of causative links as qualitatively complex as occurs in ponerogenic processes requires the proper approach and experience. In daily use of multiple conjunctions, psychologists are becoming progressively more skilled in understanding and describing many components of psychological causation. They are observing feedback on closed causative structures. However, this skill sometimes proves insufficient in overcoming our human tendency to concentrate upon some facts while ignoring others, provoking an unpleasant sensation that our mind’s capacity of understanding the reality surrounding us is inefficient. This explains the temptation to use the natural world view in order to simplify complexity and its implications, a phenomenon as common as the “old sage” known to India’s philosophical psychology. Such oversimplification of the causative picture as regards the genesis of evil, often to a single easily understood cause or one perpetrator, itself becomes a cause in this genesis.

With a great respect for the shortcomings of our human reason, let us consciously take the middle road and use the abstraction process, first describing selected phenomena, then the causative chains characteristic for ponerogenic processes. Such chains can then be linked into more complex structures ever more sufficient for the real causative network. At first the holes in the net will be so large that a school of sprats can swim through undetected, although large fish will be caught. However, this world’s evil represents a kind of continuum, where minor species of human injury effectively add up to the genesis of large evil. Making this net denser and filling in the details of the picture appear to be easier, since ponerogenic laws are analogous regardless of the scale of occurrences. Our common sense thus commits minor errors at the level of minor matters.

In attempting closer observation of these psychological processes and phenomena which lead one man or one nation to hurt another, let us select phenomena as characteristic as possible. We shall again become convinced that the participation of various pathological factors in these processes is the rule; the situation where such participation is not noticeable tends to be the exception.

The second chapter sketched the human instinctive substratum’s role in our personality development, the formation of the natural world view, and societal links and structures. We also indicated that our social, psychological, and moral concepts, as well as our natural forms of reaction, are not adequate for every situation with which life confronts us. We generally wind up hurting someone if we engage our natural concepts and reactive archetypes in situations which seem to be appropriate to our imaginings, although they are in fact essentially different. As a rule, such different situations allowing para-appropriate reactions occur because some pathological factor difficult to understand has entered the picture. The practical value of our natural world view generally ends where psychopathology begins.

Familiarity with this common weakness of human nature and the normal person’s “naïveté” is part of the specific knowledge we find in many psychopathic individuals, as well some characteropaths. Spellbinders of various schools attempt to provoke such para-appropriate reactions from other people in the name of their specific goals, or in the service of their reigning ideologies. That hard-to-understand pathological factor is then located within the spellbinder himself.

Egotism: We call egotism the attitude, subconsciously conditioned as a rule, to which we attribute excessive value to our instinctive reflex, early acquired imaginings and habits, and individual world view. Egotism fosters the domination of subconscious life and makes it difficult to accept disintegrative states, which hampers a personality’s normal evolution. This in turn favors the appearance of the above-mentioned para-appropriate reactions. An egotist measures other people by his own yardstick, treating his concepts and experiential manner as objective criteria. He would like to force other people to feel and think very much the same way he does. Egotist nations have the subconscious goal of teaching or forcing other nations to think in their own categories, which makes them incapable of understanding other people and nations or becoming familiar with the values of their cultures.

Proper rearing and self-rearing thus always aims at de-egotizing a young person or adult, thereby opening the door for his mind and character to develop. Practicing psychologists nevertheless commonly believe that a certain measure of egotism is useful as a factor stabilizing the personality, protecting it from overly facile neurotic disintegration, and thereby making it possible to overcome life’s difficulties. However rather exceptional people exist whose personality is very well integrated even though they are almost totally devoid of egotism; this allows them to understand others very easily.

The kind of excessive egotism which hampers the development of human values and leads to misjudgment and terrorization of others well deserves the title “king of human faults”. Difficulties, disputes, serious problems, and neurotic reactions sprout up around such an egotist like mushrooms after a rainfall. Egotist nations start wasting money and effort in order to achieve goals derived from their erroneous reasoning and overly emotional reactions. Their inability to acknowledge other nations’ values and dissimilarities, derived from other cultural traditions, leads to conflict and war.

We can differentiate between primary and secondary egotism. The former comes from a more natural process, namely the child’s natural egotism and egotizing child-rearing errors. The secondary one occurs when a formerly better de-egotized personality regresses to this state, which leads to an artificial attitude characterized by greater aggression and social noxiousness. Excessive egotism is a constant property of the hysterical personality, whether their hysteria be primary or secondary. That is why the increase in a nations’ egotism should be attributed to the above described hysterical cycle before anything else.

If we analyze development of excessively egotistical personalities, we find some non-pathological causes, such as having been raised in a constricted and overly routine environment or by persons less intelligent than the child. However, the main reason is contamination, through psychological induction, by excessively egotistical or hysterical persons who developed this characteristic under the influence of various pathological causes. Most of the above-described deviations cause the development of pathologically egotistical personalities, among other things.

Many people with various hereditary deviations and acquired defects develop pathological egotism. For such people, forcing others in their environment, whole social groups, and, if possible, entire nations to feel and think like themselves becomes an internal necessity, a ruling concept. Some game a normal person would not take seriously becomes an often lifelong goal for them, the object of effort, sacrifices, and cunning psychological strategy. Pathological egotism derives from repressing from one’s field of consciousness any objectionable, self-critical associations referring to one’s own nature or normality. Dramatic question such as “who is abnormal here, me or this world of people who feel and think differently?” are answered in the world’s disfavor. Such egotism is always linked to a dissimulative attitude, with a Cleckley mask or some other pathological quality being hidden from consciousness, both one’s own and that of other people. The greatest intensity of such egotism can be found in the prefrontal characteropathy described above.

The importance of the contribution of this kind of egotism to the genesis of evil thus hardly needs elaboration. It is a primarily societal resource, egotizing or traumatizing others, which in turn causes further difficulties. Pathological egotism is a constant component of variegated states wherein someone who appears to be normal (although he is in fact not quite so) is driven by motivations or battles for goals a normal person considers unrealistic or unlikely. The average person asks: “What could he expect to gain by that?”. Environmental opinion, however, interprets such a situation in accordance with “common sense” and is prone to accept a “more likely” version of occurrences. Such interpretation often results in human tragedy. We should thus always remember that the principle of law cui prodest becomes illusory whenever some pathological factor enters the picture. ...

Reversive blockade: Emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person’s mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the “golden mean” between the truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this was precisely the intent of the person who subjected them to this method. If such a statement is the opposite of a moral truth, at the same time, it simultaneously represents an extreme paramoralism, and bears its peculiar suggestiveness.

We rarely see this method being used by normal people; even if raised by the people who abused it, they usually only indicate its results in the shape of characteristic difficulties in apprehending reality properly. Use of this method can be included within the above-mentioned psychological knowledge developed by psychopaths concerning the weaknesses of human nature and the art of leading others into error. Where they are in rule, this method is used with virtuosity, and to an extent conterminous with their power.

Information selection and substitution: The existence of psychological phenomena known a long time ago to pre-Freudian philosophical students of the subconscious bears repeating. Unconscious psychological processes outstrip conscious reasoning, both in time and in scope, which makes many psychological phenomena possible: including those generally described as conversive, such as subconscious blocking out of conclusions, the selection, and, also, substitution of seemingly uncomfortable premises.

We speak of blocking out conclusions if the inferential process was proper in principle and has almost arrived at a conclusion and final comprehension within the act of internal projection, but becomes stymied by a preceding directive from the subconscious, which considered it inexpedient or disturbing. This is primitive prevention of personality disintegration, which may seem advantageous; however, it also prevents all the advantages which could be derived from consciously elaborated conclusion and reintegration. A conclusion thus rejected remains in our subconscious and in a more unconscious way causes the next blocking and selection of this kind. This can be totally harmful, progressively enslaving a person to his own subconscious, and is often accompanied by a feeling of tension and bitterness.

We speak of selection of premises whenever the feedback goes deeper into the resulting reasoning and from its database thus deletes and represses into the subconscious just that piece of information which was responsible for arriving at the uncomfortable conclusion. Our subconscious then permits further logical reasoning, except that the outcome will be erroneous in direct proportion to the actual significance of the repressed data. An ever-greater number of such repressed information is collected in our subconscious memory. Finally, a kind of habit seems to take over: similar material is treated the same way even if reasoning would have reached an outcome quite advantageous to the person.

The most complex process of this type is substitution of premises thus eliminated by other data, ensuring an ostensibly more comfortable conclusion. Our associative ability rapidly elaborates a new item to replace the removed one, but it is one leading to a comfortable conclusion. This operation takes the most time, and it is unlikely to be exclusively subconscious. Such substitutions are often effected collectively, in certain groups of people, through the use of verbal communication. That is why they best qualify for the moralizing epithet “hypocrisy” than either of the above-mentioned processes.

The above examples of conversive phenomena do not exhaust a problem richly illustrated in psychoanalytical works. Our subconscious may carry the roots of human genius within, but its operation is not perfect; sometimes it is reminiscent of a blind computer, especially whenever we allow it to be cluttered with anxiously rejected material. This explains why conscious monitoring, even at the price of courageously accepting disintegrative states, is likewise necessary to our nature, not to mention our individual and social good.

There is no such thing as a person whose perfect self-knowledge allows him to eliminate all tendencies toward conversive thinking, but some people are relatively close to this state, while others remain slaves to these processes. Those people who use conversive operations too often for the purpose of finding convenient conclusions, or constructing some cunning paralogistic or paramoralistic statements, in time undertake such behavior for ever more trivial reasons, losing the capacity for conscious control over their thought process. This necessarily leads to behavior errors which must be paid for by others as well as themselves.

People who have lost their psychological hygiene and capacity of proper thought along this road also lose their natural critical faculties with regard to the statements and behavior of individuals whose abnormal thought processes were formed on a substratum of pathological anomalies, whether inherited or acquired. Hypocrites stop differentiating between pathological and normal individuals, thus opening an “infection entry” for the ponerologic role of pathological factors.

After all, each community contains people in whom similar methods of thinking were developed on a large scale, with their various deviations as a backdrop. We find this both in characteropathic and psychopathic personalities. Some have been even influenced by others to grow accustomed to such “reasoning”, since conversion thinking is highly contagious and can spread throughout an entire society. In “happy times” especially, the tendency for conversion thinking generally intensifies. It appears accompanied as well by a rising wave of hysteria in said society. Those who try to maintain common sense and proper reasoning finally wind up in the minority, feeling wronged because their human right to maintain psychological hygiene is violated by pressure from all sides. This means that unhappy times are not far away.

We should point out that the erroneous thought processes described herein also, as a rule, violate the laws of logic with characteristic treachery. Educating people in the art of proper reasoning thus obviously counteracts such tendencies; it has a hallowed age-old tradition which seems to have been insufficiently effective for centuries. As an example: according to the laws of logic, a question containing an erroneous or unconfirmed suggestion has no answer. Nevertheless, not only does operating with such questions become epidemic among people with a tendency to conversion thinking, and a source of terror when used by psychopathical individuals; it also occurs among people who think normally, or even those who have studied logic.

This decreasing tendency in a society’s capacity for proper thought should be counteracted, since it also lowers its immunity to ponerogenic processes. An effective measure would be teaching both proper thought and skillful detection of errors in thought. The front of such education should be expanded, including psychology, psychopathology, and the science described herein, for the purpose of raising people who can easily detect any paralogism.

 

[Stevie Argyl]

Very useful, Thanks Laura

Dont have time to digest it all just now. One thing caught though and that is I am evaulating peoples internet observing abilities by what what I think is possible or what I think the limits are, as if I know whats possible.

Must dash
Thanks

 

[Laura]

Stevie, Gurdjieff described the same thing that Lobaczewski is talking about in the quote I included above. G's description of the subconscious selection and substitution and the characteristic "flavor" of it (that Lobaczewski also notes in slightly different words) relates to what he calls the "abuse of sex."

"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.

"Then the other question—'Is sexual abstinence useful for the work or not?'

"It is useful if there is abstinence in all centers. If there is abstinence in one center and full liberty of imagination in the others, then there could be nothing worse. And still more, abstinence can be useful if a man knows what to do with the energy which he saves in this way. If he does not know what to do with it, nothing whatever can be gained by abstinence."

"Speaking in general, what is the most correct form of life in this connection from the point of view of the work?"

"It is impossible to say. I repeat that while a man does not know it is better for him not to attempt anything. Until he has new and exact knowledge it will be quite enough if his life is guided by the usual rules and principles. If a man begins to theorize and invent in this sphere, it will lead to nothing except psychopathy. But it must again be remembered that 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.

"People have tried abstinence from times beyond memory. Sometimes, very rarely, it has led to something but in most cases what is called abstinence is simply exchanging normal sensations for abnormal, because the abnormal are more easily hidden. But it is not about this that I wish to speak.

"You must understand where lies the chief evil and what makes for slavery. It is not in sex itself but in the abuse of sex.

"But what the abuse of sex means is again misunderstood. People usually take this to be either excess or perversion. But these are comparatively innocent forms of abuse of sex. And it is necessary to know the human machine very well in order to grasp what abuse of sex in the real meaning of these words is.

It means the wrong work of centers in relation to sex, that is, the action of the sex center through other centers, and the action of other centers through the sex center; or, to be still more precise, the functioning of the sex center with energy borrowed from other centers and the functioning of other centers with energy borrowed from the sex center."

"Can sex be regarded as an independent center?" asked one of those present.

"It can," said G. "At the same time if all the lower story is taken as one whole, then sex can be regarded as the neutralizing part of the moving center."

"With what 'hydrogen' does the sex center work?" asked another.

This question had interested us for a long time but we had not previously been able to answer it. And G., when he had been asked before, had never given a direct reply.

"The sex center works with 'hydrogen' 12," he said on this occasion, "that is to say, it ought to work with it. This is si 12. But the fact is that it very rarely works with its proper hydrogen. Abnormalities in the working of the sex center require special study.

"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 is the 'abuse of sex.'

"It is necessary, further, to remember that the sex center works with 'hydrogen' 12. This means that it is stronger and quicker than all other centers.

"Sex, in fact, governs all other centers. The only thing in ordinary circumstances, that is, when man has neither consciousness nor will, that holds the sex center in submission is 'buffers.'

'Buffers' can entirely bring it to nought, that is, they can stop its normal manifestation. But they cannot destroy its energy. The energy remains and passes over to other centers, finding expression for itself through them; in other words, the other centers rob the sex center of the energy which it does not use itself.

"The energy of the sex center in the work of the thinking, emotional, and moving centers can be recognized by a particular 'taste,' by a particular fervor, by a vehemence which the nature of the affair concerned does not call for.

The thinking center writes books, but in making use of the energy of the sex center it does not simply occupy itself with philosophy, science, or politics—it is always fighting something, disputing, criticizing, creating new subjective theories.

The emotional center preaches Christianity, abstinence, asceticism, or the fear and horror of sin, hell, the torment of sinners, eternal fire, all this with the energy of the sex center. ... Or on the other hand it works up revolutions, robs, bums, kills, again with the same energy.

The moving center occupies itself with sport, creates various records, climbs mountains, jumps, fences, wrestles, fights, and so on.

In all these instances, that is, in the work of the thinking center as well as in the work of the emotional and the moving centers, when they work with the energy of the sex center, there is always one general characteristic and this is a certain particular vehemence and, together with it, the uselessness of the work in question.

Neither the thinking nor the emotional nor the moving centers can ever create anything useful with the energy of the sex center.

This is an example of the 'abuse of sex.'

"But this is only one aspect of it. Another aspect consists in the fact that, when the energy of the sex center is plundered by the other centers and spent on useless work, it has nothing left for itself and has to steal the energy of other centers which is much lower and coarser than its own. And yet the sex center is very .important for the general activity, and particularly for the inner growth of the organism, because, working with 'hydrogen' 12, it can receive a very fine food of impressions, such as none of the ordinary centers can receive. The fine food of impressions is very important for the manufacture of the higher 'hydrogens.' But when the sex center works with energy that is not its own, that is, with the comparatively low 'hydrogens' 48 and 24, its impressions become much coarser and it ceases to play the role in the organism which it could play.

"What must be done to struggle against the 'abuse of sex'?" asked somebody present.

G. laughed.

"I was just waiting for that question," he said. "But you already ought to understand that it is just as impossible to explain to a man who has not yet begun to work on himself and does not know the structure of the machine what the 'abuse of sex' means, as it is to say what must be done to avoid these abuses. Right work on oneself begins with the creation of a permanent center of gravity. When a permanent center of gravity has been created everything else begins to be disposed and distributed in subordination to it. The question comes to this: From what and how can a permanent center of gravity be created? And to this may be replied that only a man's attitude to the work, to school, his valuation of the work, and his realization of the mechanicalness and aimlessness of everything else can create in him a permanent center of gravity.

 

[Laura]

Very useful, Thanks Laura

Dont have time to digest it all just now. One thing caught though and that is I am evaulating peoples internet observing abilities by what what I think is possible or what I think the limits are, as if I know whats possible.

Must dash
Thanks

Stevie, the study of psycho-linguistics - how words - spoken and written - reveal a person's inner landscape, is a particular project that QFS has worked on for some time. This forum is actually an experiment in being able to read people accurately, figure out what they need so they can be helped even via an internet/written communication, and, of course, continuing to protect them from predators by recognizing and removing them.

As Sandra Brown reiterates, you can't fix Cluster B personality disorders, so we don't spend any time on that. We get them out of here so those who want to work can do so in peace and safety. It's hard enough without hecklers.

As Hervey Cleckley points out, psychopaths (and other Cluster Bs) wear a mask of sanity, but we are working on being able to detect them faster and better. And we do have certified professionals onboard in interactive and advisory capacities, so it's not just a bunch of amateurs with wild ideas here.

Much of Gurdjieff's work has amazing similarities to some of the latest cognitive science and represents a possible nexus between the material and the mystical.

We do NOT use telepathy to "diagnose" anyone. In fact, we don't diagnose: we assess and give our opinions and frame our words and actions based on those assessments. So far, based on the history of this forum, we bat them out of the park almost every time. In short, the historical track record, preserved on this forum for anyone who has the time to find and read the threads, is our primary data that our method of studying "word gestures", semantics, etc, is a viable diagnostic tool. And it is also a valuable healing modality.

 

[mocachapeau]

Someone earlier in this thread posts that I do not take this forum seriously. Well in the contributing thread to this one a poster was having a bit of a rough time with some stuff to deal with. I empathised with the poster having been in a similar situation years ago. I recognised they might be feeling angry/sad/let down/ depressed/lost/numb/frustated and porbably all of these at different times, and I know from my experience of those places that there is a tendency for the head to be swarming in thoughts , for the endless self talk, for the same sentences to be repeated like a stuck record, for the mind and feeling to seemingly be getting somewhere with something and then the train of thought is lost and there is an abyss just as you think you are about to discover something.
So i offered a practice that I thought might be useful which is 'sitting with the feelings' as people in this situation where uncomfortable feelings are experienced might tend to escape into their head.

Hi Stevie,

It might be helpful if you were to quote the poster who stated that you do not take this forum seriously, because I'm wondering if you are referring to my statement that it was never your intention to come here and work on yourself.

If so, I would just like to point out that I didn't mean you are not taking this forum seriously. I think you are taking this forum QUITE seriously, but only in the sense of helping others. As I said before, I think that is commendable, and you clearly have a lot to offer in that way. In the above quote, everything that follows the section in bold is you illustrating that you take this forum seriously because you were genuinely trying to help someone else.

But I got the impression that when you joined, you probably hadn't put much thought into the idea that you may, at some point, be the one who is offered some help. This in turn led me to think that you may feel you are someone who doesn't NEED anyone's help. Maybe because you don't think it is possible for yourself to have any issues, or maybe you are really good at what you do so you feel that you are the best person to figure out your own issues.

But I think you know that defense mechanisms are created with the principle purpose of fooling the one who is creating them, which is why we need help from others to identify them. Even if we are therapists.

Edit:

I just wanted to add something.

From what I have observed, the more intelligent and/or educated a person is, the more complicated and intricate their defense mechanisms must be to fool them. Add an education in psychology and sixteen years of experience as a therapist to the mix, and you come up with a real tough defense to crack. You have SO much intellectual information to draw from to "argue" your case, and the person you are really arguing with is, of course, yourself.

 

[Oxajil]

Someone earlier in this thread posts that I do not take this forum seriously. Well in the contributing thread to this one a poster was having a bit of a rough time with some stuff to deal with. I empathised with the poster having been in a similar situation years ago. I recognised they might be feeling angry/sad/let down/ depressed/lost/numb/frustated and porbably all of these at different times, and I know from my experience of those places that there is a tendency for the head to be swarming in thoughts , for the endless self talk, for the same sentences to be repeated like a stuck record, for the mind and feeling to seemingly be getting somewhere with something and then the train of thought is lost and there is an abyss just as you think you are about to discover something.
So i offered a practice that I thought might be useful which is 'sitting with the feelings' as people in this situation where uncomfortable feelings are experienced might tend to escape into their head.

Yes, you must be referring to me. I am very grateful for your concern Stevie. And just as you have the desire to help me, so do most people here have the desire, to help you, osit.
And to me it first seemed that you were not willing to listen to what people were telling you (atleast, that was not clear from your posts), and just tried to get back to your topic of the thread. That's why I thought you might not take this forum seriously. As always I might be mistaken, it is just an observation..

Basically what mocachapeau said.